BR  50  . J66  1923 
Jones,  Rufus  Matthew,  1863- 
1948, 

Religious  foundations 


) 


\ 


t 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


t 


https://archive.org/details/religiousfoundatOOjone 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO  •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


Religious  Foundations 


By  A.  Clutton-Brock;  Elihu  Grant,  Ph.D.;  Prof.  L.  P. 
Jacks;  Rufus  M.  Jones;  Prof.  Eugene  W.  Lyman; 
Prof.  Francis  G.  Peabody;  B.  Seebohm  Rown- 
tree;  Dean  Willard  L.  Sperry. 

-  v/ 

Edited  by  Rufus  M.  Jones,  LL.D. 


j Beta  fforft 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1923 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1923, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  printed.  Published  January,  1923. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


INTRODUCTION 


This  little  book  by  many  authors  needs  a  brief  Intro¬ 
duction  to  explain  its  origin  and  to  indicate  its  bear¬ 
ings.  A  religious  Summer  School  has  been  held  at 
Haverford  College  since  1900  at  intervals  of  about 
every  two  years.  This  School  has  aimed  to  interpret 
religious  history,  Christian  thought,  Biblical  knowl¬ 
edge,  social  reconstruction,  and  kindred  subjects  to 
persons  who  wish  to  think  and  act  in  the  light  of  pres¬ 
ent-day  truths  and  modern  insight.  It  has  been 
marked  by  deep  reverence,  constructive  faith,  unswerv¬ 
ing  devotion  to  truth  and  a  determination  to  go  for¬ 
ward  with  the  advancing  light  of  the  Spirit. 

As  the  attendance  has  never  been  large  and  the 
effort  of  preparation  heavy  and  expensive,  it  was  pro¬ 
posed  this  year  that  instead  of  holding  a  Summer 
School  we  should  put  our  efforts  and  our  funds  into 
the  preparation  of  a  book  which  would  reach  many 
more  persons  than  could  possibly  be  drawn  to  our 
local  gathering.  The  suggestion  met  with  favor  and 
I  was  asked  to  guide  the  experiment.  Here  is  the  re¬ 
sult — a  little  book  but  one  of  quite  unusual  quality. 
Many  of  the  writers  are  very  widely  and  favorably 
known  and  all  of  them  have  the  characteristics  I  have 
emphasized:  deep  reverence,  constructive  faith,  un¬ 
swerving  devotion  to  truth  and  a  determination  to  go 
forward  whenever  the  pillar  of  God  moves  onward. 

There  has  been  no  attempt  made  to  direct  the  dif¬ 
ferent  authors  or  to  force  the  book  into  a  harmony  of 
position.  Each  penman  was  free.  But  there  is  a 
striking  unity  of  outlook  and  insight  and  there  is  an 
organic  correlation  of  all  the  parts  so  that  the  book 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


is  an  integral  whole.  I  am  sorry  to  have  written  more 
than  my  fair  share  of  the  chapters,  but  the  three  which 
have  fallen  to  me  almost  necessarily  had  to  be  written 
by  one  person  since  they  deal  with  such  closely  allied 
subjects  as  God ,  Christ  and  The  Spirit  revealed  in 
man. 

It  is  an  honest  book,  written  by  men  who  have  said 
what  they  sincerely  believe.  It  accepts  the  established 
facts  of  science  and  history,  but  it  is  penetrated  with  a 
great  faith  in  the  eternal  verities  by  which  men  can 
live  triumphant  lives  and  stand  the  universe  in  this 
period  of  gravity  and  of  heart-searching. 

“One  equal  temper  of  heroic  hearts, 

Made  weak  by  time  and  fate,  but  strong  in  will 
To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find  and  not  to  yield.” 

R.  M.  J. 

Haverford  College,  Haverford,  Pennsylvania. 

“Indian  Summer,”  1922. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

Introduction . .  v 

CHAPTER 

I  How  Shall  We  Think  of  God?  ....  1 

by  Rufus  M.  Jones 

II  How  Shall  We  Think  of  Christ?  ....  15 

by  Rufus  M.  Jones 

III  How  Shall  We  Think  of  Man?  ....  30 

by  Rufus  M.  Jones 

IV  What  Shall  We  Think  of  Nature?  ...  42 

V  ' 

by  Willard  L.  Sperry 

Dean  of  Harvard  Divinity  School 


V  How  Shall  We  Think  of  Society  and 

Human  Relationships? . 57 

y 

by  B.  Seebohm  Rowntree 
York,  England 

VI  How  Shall  We  Think  of  the  Kingdom  of 

God?  v . 73 

by  A.  Clutton-Brock  of  London 


VII  What  Shall  ^e  Think  of  the  Bible?  .  .  87 

by  Elihuv  Grant 

Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in 
Haverford  College 
vii 


\ 


CONTENTS 


vm 


CHAPTER 

VIII  How  Shall  We  Think  of  Evil?  .  *  .  . 

>/ 

by  Professor  L.  P.  Jacks 
Editor  of  The  Hihbert  Journal 

IX  How  Shall  We  Think  of  Progress?  .  .  . 

by  Eugene  W.  Lyman 
Professor  in  Union  Theological  Seminary 

X  How  Shall  We  Think  of  Life  After 
Death? . ^ . 

by  Professor  Francis  G.  Peabody 
Cambridge,  Mass. 


PAGE 

101 


119 


134 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD? 

By  Rufus  M.  Jones 

It  will  perhaps  be  asked  whether  there  is  any  use 
writing  anything  on  the  question,  How  shall  we  think 
of  God?  when  there  are  so  many  persons  who  do  not 
think  of  Him  at  all.  Those  who  have  always  moved  in 
religious  circles  and  whose  lives  have  been  devoted  to 
the  affairs  and  concerns  of  the  Christian  Church  do 
not  perhaps  realize  how  widespread  is  the  loss,  not 
only  of  faith,  but  even  of  interest  in  the  whole  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  existence  of  God.  Persons  who  are  isolated 
from,  and  more  or  less  immune  to,  these  profound 
tendencies  of  doubt  go  jauntily  on  threshing  the  old 
straw  of  controversy  about  the  infallibility  of  Scrip¬ 
ture,  the  form  of  sacraments,  the  sacred  types  of 
Church  organization,  the  efficacy  of  ordination,  the  re¬ 
wards  and  punishments  of  the  world  beyond,  and  many 
more  subordinate  problems,  when  the  foundations  of 
the  entire  structure  of  religious  faith  to  a  very  large 
number  of  persons  all  about  us  are  insubstantial,  and 
when  the  question  of  God’s  existence  receives  less  con¬ 
sideration  in  the  minds  of  these  persons  from  one  year’s 
end  to  another  than  does  that  of  the  cost  of  a  motor 
car. 

This  is  not  merely  fhe  case  with  the  “capital  class.” 
It  is  just  as  true  for  workingmen  and  for  the  dwellers 
in  rural  communities.  This  situation  will  be  found  to 

1 


2 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


prevail  to  a  striking  degree  in  scholarly  circles,  both  of 
the  older  and  younger  groups.  The  reports  on  the 
religious  condition  of  the  nation  which  were  made  soon 
after  the  close  of  the  war  both  in  Great  Britain  and 
America  are  very  depressing  to  read,  and  seem  to  indi¬ 
cate  a  state  of  ignorance  on  questions  of  life  and  re¬ 
ligion  that  is  almost  staggering.  If  religion  is  vital  to 
the  essential  welfare  of  men  and  nations,  there  is  surely 
occasion  for  serious  concern  and  alarm.  The  old  argu¬ 
ments  to  prove  the  existence  of  God  seem  to-day  to 
both  teachers  and  students  to  be  antiquated.  His 
relation  to  the  scientifically  ordered  universe  appears 
to  them  difficult  either  to  explain  or  to  maintain,  and 
prevailing  ideas  about  Him  are  felt  to  be  crude  if  not 
puerile.  They  are  weary  of  discussions  of  theology. 
People  of  the  present  day  do  not  respond  to  dogmatic 
methods  and  they  do  not  accept  the  dicta  of  “author¬ 
ity.”  This  whole  field  of  research,  they  consider,  has 
become  unproductive  and  uninteresting,  and  they  have 
turned  away  from  it  to  lines  of  work  and  issues  of 
thought  which  prove  to  be  more  fruitful  and  rewarding. 
Everywhere  one  turns  he  finds  this  central  question  of 
life — the  reality  and  character  of  God — treated  with 
neglect,  unconcern,  and  loss  of  interest.  There  is, 
therefore,  no  point  in  going  forward  with  a  book  on 
Religious  Foundations  unless  something  arresting,  con¬ 
vincing,  and  converting  can  be  said  at  the  opening  of  it 
about  God. 

There  are,  without  doubt,  many  persons  who  have 
no  difficulties,  who  have  not  found  it  necessary  to  take 
long  wilderness  journeys  over  dreary  sand  wastes, 
stripped  of  faith  and  naked  to  the  blasts  of  doubt. 
They  have  been  led  by  the  hand  in  early  life  into  a 
calm  and  confident  religious  experience  which  has  met 
all  the  needs  of  the  soul,  and  which  they  have  felt  no 
more  desire  to  investigate  or  to  pull  to  pieces  than 
they  have  felt  compelled  to  make  a  chemical  analysis 
of  the  bread  and  butter  which  have  been  admirably 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD? 


3 


nourishing  their  body  during  the  years  of  growing  life. 
Such  persons  look  with  some  amazement  at  the  re¬ 
ligious  unsettlement  of  the  world,  and  wonder  why  the 
faith  which  serves  them  so  satisfactorily  proves  so  dif¬ 
ficult  of  adoption  or  of  maintenance  for  others.  They 
have  cared  little  for  arguments  because  they  have 
never  been  constrained  to  resort  to  them,  and  they  have 
not  been  disturbed  by  the  discovery  of  the  weakness 
of  the  logical  cables  which  bear  the  strain  of  proof  in 
these  great  matters.  This  little  book  is  not  written 
for  such  persons.  It  is  written  rather  for  those  who 
do  not  so  easily  find  the  trail  to  the  city  of  God  but 
who  yet  are  serious  in  their  desire  to  find  it,  and  who 
are  glad  to  know  what  leads  an  honest  seeker  and 
present-day  student  to  believe  in  God  and  how  he 
thinks  about  God’s  nature  and  character. 

The  famous  logical  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God 
which  were  formulated  in  the  period  from  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  to  Descartes  need  not  concern  us  very  much. 
They  are  effective  only  for  those  who  need  no  con¬ 
vincing.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  live  force — vis 
viva — in  them  when  one  takes  the  pains  to  feel  his 
way  down  to  the  full  implication  of  the  ultimate  facts 
of  experience  upon  which  they  build,  but  in  their  bare, 
logical  form  they  do  not  coercively  prove  that  which 
they  aim  to  demonstrate.  They  undertake  to  do  what 
cannot  be  done.  The  main  weakness  of  these  historical 
arguments  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  are  endeavoring 
to  prove  the  reality  of  a  God  who  is  beyond  the  world, 
outside  the  entire  frame  of  space,  a  first  Mover,  a 
Creator  of  all  things,  and  related  to  all  that  is  as  a 
cause  is  related  to  a  series  of  effects.  The  eighteenth 
century  revealed  how  arid  and  empty  that  conception 
of  God  is  and  what  an  easy  mark  it  is  for  doubt  and 
skepticism.  Thoughtful,  mature  interpreters  of  the  na¬ 
ture  of  God  have  left  it  behind  in  the  dull  contro¬ 
versial  books  of  the  period,  and  have  gone  on  to  richer 
and  profounder  ways  of  thinking  of  God. 


4 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


It  should  be  said,  however,  that  the  opposite  view  to 
this  transcendent  God,  i.e.,  the  view  of  the  pantheist 
who  identifies  God  with  the  total  frame  of  things,  is  no 
less  unsatisfactory.  “The  God  of  things  as  they  are” 
will  not  do  for  us.  We  have  not  found  any  solution  of 
our  deep  problem  when  we  have  merely  fused  and 
merged  the  Great  Reality  we  seek  into  the  vast  aggre¬ 
gation  of  the  world  of  visible  nature  and  finite  mind. 
We  cannot  worship  a  magnified  That  Which  Is,  no 
matter  how  great  and  inclusive  it  may  be.  The  God 
Pan — the  All — as  an  object  of  worship  includes  too 
much.  There  are  many  things  in  that  immense  hold- 
all  aggregation  which,  our  spirits  feel,  ought  not  to  be 
there,  many  things  which  mar  the  picture,  spoil  the 
harmony,  and  turn  the  worshiper  from  an  attitude  of 
adoration  to  one  of  protest.  Religion  is  not  born  of 
addition.  It  is  not  aroused  by  the  size  of  the  list  of 
things  that  are. 

There  is  another  spurious  trail  which  has  attracted 
many  writers  on  religion.  This  is  the  way  of  certain 
psychologists  who  reduce  God  to  an  idea  in  the  mind, 
a  subjective  idea  which  has  no  objective  reality  cor¬ 
responding  to  it.  He  is  an  immense  fictitious  Char¬ 
acter  which  we  can  use  effectively,  as  we  use  the  con¬ 
structed  entity,  Country  or  Church,  and  which  we  un¬ 
consciously  have  built  up  for  our  corporate  life  and 
for  community  purposes.  We  are  encouraged  to  go  on 
cherishing  the  idea  as  though  it  stood  for  Something 
Real.  We  are  urged  to  cultivate  prayer  for  its 
emotional  or  motor  effects.  We  are  told  that  this  God, 
who  is  a  product  of  our  own  thought,  can  be  “used” 
as  effectively  for  individual  and  community  purposes 
as  though  He  had  an  independent  existence.  But  it 
is  only  too  obvious  that  such  a  self-made  religion  and 
such  a  constructed  God  will  quickly  lose  emotional  and 
motor  effect  as  soon  as  education  and  self-conscious¬ 
ness  have  had  time  to  bring  disillusionment  to  those 
who  in  naive  simplicity  had  been  supposing  that  God 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD? 


5 


was  at  least  as  real  as  the  human  mind  that  now  ap¬ 
pears  to  be  the  creator  of  Him!  There  is  no  future 
for  religion,  no  permanence  to  its  inspiration  and  lift¬ 
ing  power,  unless  men  and  women — and  the  children 
who  share  their  outlook  and  ideals — can  continue  gen¬ 
uinely  and  sincerely  to  believe  in  God  as  the  ground 
and  reality  of  that  which  is  good,  the  spring  and  basis 
of  a  real  moral  and  spiritual  universe,  the  life  and 
inspiration  of  all  our  aims  at  righteousness  and 
truth,  the  Great  Companion  who  shares  with  us  in 
the  travail  and  tragedy  of  the  world  and  who 
is  working  through  us  to  “bring  things  up  to 
better.” 

I  am  convinced  that  the  spiritual  basis  beneath  our 
feet  is  solid.  I  have  no  fear  that  religion  will  turn 
out  to  be  a  slowly  waning  and  gradually  vanishing 
subjective  dream.  I  am  confident  that  the  testimony 
of  the  soul  is  at  least  as  reliable  a  guide  to  the  eternal 
nature  of  things  as  is  the  witness  which  mathematics 
bears.  Assertions  of  confidence,  however,  are  not  the 
same  thing  as  facts,  and  optimistic  statements  of  in¬ 
dividual  faith  are  not  demonstrations  which  carry  in¬ 
evitable  conviction  to  others.  We  must  endeavor  to 
search  out  the  rational  foundations  of  our  faith  in 
God,  and  we  must  then  try  to  express  as  clearly 
and  concretely  as  possible  how  a  modern  man  thinks 
of  Him.  The  rational  foundations  must  of  course  be 
found  revealed,  if  at  all,  in  the  nature  of  our  own  ex¬ 
perience.  Reason,  mind,  thought,  as  it  appears  in  our 
consciousness,  is  the  only  clue  there  is  to  that  deeper 
fundamental  Reason  that  holds  as  from  one  Center  all 
the  threads  of  reality  and  purpose  in  the  mighty  frame 
and  congeries  of  things.  The  way  of  approach  is  like 
that  to  a  great  mountain  peak  such  as  Mount  Everest. 
At  first  there  are  many  paths  which  gradually  con¬ 
verge,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  there  are  many  ways 
of  traveling,  but  at  the  very  last  for  the  final  climb 
there  is  only  one  way  up. 


6 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


In  the  first  place,  knowledge  of  truth,  truth  which 
we  discover  and  verify  in  our  human  experience,  always 
presupposes  something  more  than  finite.  Knowledge  is 
something  more  than  the  formation  of  subjective  ideas. 
It  implies  a  foundational  reality  underlying  and  unit¬ 
ing  the  knower  and  objects  known  in  a  wider  inclusive 
whole.  Sense  experience  furnishes  no  adequate  basis 
for  knowledge,  s  The  so-called  “items”  presented  by 
sense — color,  sounds,  tastes,  odors,  roughness  and 
smoothness,  weight  and  hardness — are  no  inore  knowl¬ 
edge  than  chaotic  masses  of  stone,  brick,  and  lumber 
are  a  house.  Knowledge  involves  organization,  syn¬ 
thesis,  unity,  consciousness  of  meaning,  interpretation, 
feeling  of  significance,  a  conviction  of  certainty,  a 
sense  of  reality,  aspects  of  universality  and  necessity. 
None  of  these  features  comes  in  through  the  senses. 
They  belong  to  the  nature  of  mind  and  are  funda¬ 
mental  to  mind.  “To  know,”  as  a  distinguished 
thinker  of  our  time  has  said,  “means  more  than  to  look 
out  through  a  window  at  some  reality  of  a  different 
character.”  Knowledge  is  not  something  which  orig¬ 
inates  within.  Nor  is  it  something  received  from 
without.  It  is  an  indivisible  experience  with  an  inner 
and  an  outer— a  subjective  and  objective — factor, 
neither  of  which  can  be  sundered  from  the  other  nor 
ever  reduqed  to  the  other.  Our  finite  minds,  through 
s  the  process  of  knowledge,  reveal  the  fact  that  they  be¬ 
long  to  a  larger  whole,  a  foundational  reality,  which 
underlies  self  and  object,  inner  and  outer,  and  which 
is  the  source  and  ground  of  the  fundamental  laws  of 
reason  through  which  we  organize  our  experience,  by 
which  we  get  a  world  in  common,  and  by  which  we 
transcend  the  limits  of  now  and  here,  the  fragmentary 
character  of  what  is  given  to  sense,  and  rise  to  some¬ 
thing  universal,  necessary,  and  infinite  in  its  implica¬ 
tions,  for  knowledge  with  its  element  of  “must  be” 
always  reveals  the  fact  that  the  knower  part&Jms  in 
some  degree  of  the  infinite,  at  lqast  he  transcends  the 


/ 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD?  7 

S  / 

finite.  We  are  always  out  beyond  ourselves  when  we 
are  dealing  with  .truth. 

This  extraordinary  characteristic  of  going  beyond 
ourselves  comes  to  light  even  more  impressively  when 
we  are  endeavoring  to  realize  moral  and  spiritual  ideals. 

Growth  came  when,  looking  your  last  on  them  all, 

You  turned  your  eyes  inwardly  one  fine  day 
And  cried  with  a  start — what  if  we  so  small 
Be  greater  and  grander  the  while  than  they? 

Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature? 

In  both,  of  such  lower  types  are  we 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature; 

For  time,  theirs — ours,  for  eternity.1 

The  tendency  to  extend  our  world  in  ideal  directions, 
to  leave  the  attained  for  the  greater  unattained,  to  see 
the  unwon  area  lying  beyond  the  limits  and  fringes  of 
all  our  conquests,  is  an  inevitable  trait  in  beings  like 
*  us,  and  it  is  the  supreme  mark  of  our  dignity,  as  it  is 
also  a  clear  intimation  of  our  alliance  with  a  spiritual 
universe  in  us  and  around  us.  “What  is  the  ground  of 
this  uneasiness  of  ours,  of  this  old  discontent?”  says 
Emerson  in  The  Over-Soul.  “What  is  the  universal 
sense  of  want  and  ignorance  but  the  fine  innuendo  by 
which  the  soul  makes  its  enormous  claim!” 

It  is  not  easy  to  discover  the  nature  of  conscience  nor 
to  account  for  its  august  authority,  but  one  point  al¬ 
ways  stands  out  clearly  whenever  the  diagnosis  is  made, 
and  that  is  the  fact  that  man  in  his  moral  capacity  is 
not  only  more  than  a  bare  individual  self,  but  more, 
too,  than  a  finite  cell  in  a  social  organism.  The  full 
significance  of  “I  ought,  I  must,”  carries  us  beyond  the 
empirical  order  of  things  and  events,  and  involves  a 
spiritual  reality  of  which  we  partake  and  in  which  we 
share.  Kant  is  right  when  he  finds  God,  Freedom,  and 
Immortality  inherently  bound  up  with  the  moral  will 
of  man.  He  is  hampered  by  his  abstract  method  and 

1  Robert  Browning’s  Old  Pictures  in  Florence. 


8 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


by  his  tendency  to  divide  the  mind  as  well  as  the  uni¬ 
verse  into  compartments,  but  he  is  sure  that  he  has 
found  the  real  trail,  and  so  he  has. 

Beauty  is  another  revelation  of  a  spiritual  reality 
in  the  universe  which  links  us  up  with  something  be¬ 
yond  ourselves.  Beauty  is  not  there  in  any  external 
object  taken  by  itself.  It  is  not,  any  more,  projected 
out  by  our  minds  as  a  subjective  veil  of  glory  which 
we  as  artistic  creators  throw  over  the  iron  facts  and 
circumstances  of  a  dull  exterior  world.  Beauty  is  an 
experience  in  which  we  find  ourselves  joyously  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  something  beyond  ourselves,  in  such  a  way 
that  the  outer  and  inner,  the  beyond  and  the  within, 
seem  fused  into  a  unity  that  transcends  division. 
“Two  distincts,  division  none.”  And  the  whole  uni¬ 
verse,  from  “the  bands  of  Orion”  down  to  the  infinites¬ 
imal  scenery  which  the  microscope  reveals  when,  for 
example,  we  examine  a  piece  of  mold,  is  crammed  with 
beauty.  All  we  need  to  do  is  to  bring  a  sensitive  soul, 
with  its  seeing  eye,  its  unifying,  synoptic  capacity,  to 
any  point  of  observation,  and  the  beauty  breaks  upon 
us.  It  is  as  though  a  Spirit  like  ours,  only  infinite  in 
scope  and  range,  were  breaking  through  the  world  to 
meet  us  at  our  best  and  to  raise  us  into  union  and  to 
thrill  us  with  joy.  “Through  these  emotions,”  wrote 
Arthur  Balfour  in  his  Theism  and  Humanism,  “we 
have  obtained  an  authentic  glimpse  of  a  world  more 
resplendent  and  not  less  real  than  that  in  which  we 
tramp  our  daily  round.  And,  if  so,  we  shall  attribute 
to  them  a  value  independent  of  their  immediate  cause 
— a  value  which  cannot  be  maintained  in  a  merely 
naturalistic  setting ”  The  gradual  evolution  of  life 
from  minute  beginnings  to  ever  higher  forms,  and  the 
no  less  unmistakable  progress  revealed  in  history  are 
weighty  indications  of  an  underlying  rational  and  pur¬ 
poseful  power  working  toward  a  goal.  There  have 
sometimes  been  backward  eddies  in  the  stream  and 
there  are  evidences  that  the  gains  are  made  at  a 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD? 


9 


great  cost,  but,  on  the  whole  and  in  the  long  run, 
the  movement  is  steadily  onward  and  forward.  Some¬ 
thing  present  in,  and  yet  beyond,  the  existent  seems 
all  the  time  breaking  through  and  pushing  toward 
higher  and  completer  forms,  wiser  and  fairer  types. 
Mutations  in  the  biological  order  are  mysterious  ap¬ 
pearances  and  so  too  are  geniuses  in  the  historical 
series,  but  they  prove,  in  the  main,  to  be  creative  in 
their  functions  and  they  carry  the  march  of  life  and 
the  torch  of  the  spirit  forward-  They  must  be  either 
“accidents”  in  a  stupendous  chain  of  accidents,  or  they 
must  be  the  pushing  forth  of  the  intelligent  purpose 
of  the  great  foundational  Reality  that  moves  with  in¬ 
finite  patience  toward  “a  far-off  divine  event,”  but  a 
divine  event  always  coming. 

Values  are  not  tangible  things,  like  Monadnock  or 
a  coal  mine,  but  they  are  certainly  as  real  as  anything 
we  ever  see  or  feel.  The  world  of  values  which  in¬ 
cludes  pure  unselfish  love  of  friend  for  friend,  dedica-  . 
tion  to  what  ought  to  be  but  is  not  yet,  loyalty  to 
causes  which  concern  unborn  generations,  appreciation 
of  beauty,  truth  and  goodness,  is  a  world  that  must  be 
accounted  for  somehow.  It  did  not  just  “happen.” 

It  is  always  in  the  making.  It  is  revealed  through 
us  and  is  being  created  through  our  strivings.  But 
values  are  not  capricious,  subjective  things.  They 
are  not  will-o’-the-wisps  that  gleam  and  vanish  in 
freakish  ways.  They  are  the  deepest  realities  of  our 
human  lives.  They  make  us  what  we  are  and  they 
shape  our  destinies  at  least  as  much  as  sunlight  and 
oxygen  do.  They  rest  upon  some  vast  underlying, 
foundational  Reality  without  which  we  should  lack 
all  spiritual  aim  and  purpose.  Whether  God  is  neces¬ 
sary  or  not  to  explain  the  world  of  nature,  He  is  surely 
necessary  to  explain  our  world  of  values — our  Kingdom 
of  Ends. 

These  are  some  of  the  implications  of  human  ex¬ 
perience  which  furnish  the  ground  and  basis  of  a  solid 


10 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


rational  conviction  of  faith  in  God’s  existence.  The 
only  surer  ground  is  direct  experience  of  God,  which 
many  persons  claim  to  have.  Arguments  lead  to  the 
base  of  the  mountain,  experience  alone  scales  it.  He 
who  has  climbed  the  peak  gets  an  evidence — and  a 
thrill — of  summit-vision  which  the  dwellers  in  the 
valley-hotels  can  never  have.  My  figure  of  the  peak 
is  not  meant  to  refer  to  the  solitary  aspect  of  the  man 
who  climbs,  nor  to  the  laborious  feature  of  the  enter¬ 
prise,  though  the  experience  of  God  is  sometimes 
solitary  and  does  always  involve  severe  preparation 
and  effort.  I  am  only  bringing  out  the  fact  that  one 
cannot  know  the  scenery  and  circumstance  of  the  top 
unless  he  has  been  there  himself.  The  mystic  has 
been  there,  and  he  comes  to  tell  us  that  beyond  all  con¬ 
jectures  and  inferences  about  the  reality  of  God  is 
the  consciousness  of  enjoying  His  presence. 

Religion  in  its  first  and  deepest  intention  is  as  solidly 
based  on  experience  as  is  art  or  friendship.  It  is  at 
bottom  a  direct  way  of  vital  intercourse  between  man 
and  God.  There  would  have  been  no  real  religion  in 
the  world  if  God  in  actual  fact  had  not  broken  in  on 
the  consciousness  of  men,  producing  a  feeling  of  reality 
no  less  convincing  than  that  which  characterizes  our 
observations  of  sense.  In  the  chapter  on  Man  we  shall 
see  that  there  is  a  capacity  for  God  in  the  very  frame 
and  structure  of  the  inner  self,  and  we  shall  come  into 
closer  grips  with  the  fact  of  man’s  inherent  religious 
nature.  “The  soul’s  east  window  of  divine  surprise” 
is  not  an  invention  of  poets.  It  is  as  much  an  original 
part  of  us  as  is  the  outer  eye.  It  is  a  native  endow¬ 
ment  of  beings  like  ourselves,  who  are  not  constructed 
to  be  space-binders  alone,  nor  solely  to  look  out  on 
things  composed  of  matter.  There  is  an  inward  depth, 
an  interior  scope,  to  personal  consciousness  which 
knows  no  boundary  shore. 

Though  thy  soul  sail  leagues  and  leagues  beyond, 

Still  leagues  beyond  those  leagues  there  is  more  sea. 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD? 


11 


In  short,  our  spirits  touch  close  upon  the  Spirit  and 
there  is  no  fixed  “boundary”  between  spirit  and  Spirit, 
any  more  than  there  is  where  the  sea  and  sky  seem 
to  meet.  We  do  not  need  to  go  “somewhere”  to  find 
God,  any  more  than  the  fish  needs  to  soar  to  find  the 
ocean  or  the  eagle  to  plunge  to  find  the  air.  We  only 
need  to  be  prepared  to  see  and  feel  and  find  what 
fringes  the  inner  margins  of  ourselves. 

Spirit  seems  to  many  persons  a  vague  and  unre¬ 
vealing  word.  It  meant  “breath”  originally  and  it 
played  a  lowly  role  in  the  long  childhood  stage  of  the 
race.  Then  and  since,  it  has  often  been  the  bearer  of 
occult  phenomena  and  it  has  been  loaded  with  cargoes 
of  superstition.  But,  even  so,  it  is  the  best  word  there 
is  to  express  the  essential  nature  of  God.  It  signifies 
that  He  is  not  to  be  confused  with  matter  nor  to  be 
found  in  a  framework  of  space.  He  is  like  that  highest, 
purest  inner  nature  in  ourselves  which  we  call  “spirit.” 
He  is  intelligent,  He  is  purposeful.  He  is  devoted 
to  the  realization  of  the  good.  He  is  what  we  are  try¬ 
ing  to  be.  And  wherever  in  the  universe  the  good  is 
being  achieved,  wherever  truth  is  triumphing,  wherever 
holiness  is  making  its  power  known — there  is  Spirit, 
there  is  God.  When  we  think  of  God  we  do  not  mean 
vague  force,  not  some  dim,  vapory  abstract  reality,  not 
a  mere  “power  making  for  righteousness.”  We  mean 
all  that  can  be  expressed  by  the  word  Person  and 
vastly  more,  since  our  word  Person  carries  with  it 
limitations  which  cannot  be  applied  to  God. 

We  know  spirit  best  as  it  works  through  persons  in 
their  incarnate,  i.e.,  embodied,  form.  There  is  much 
mystery  wrapped  up  in  this  junction  of  spirit  and 
matter  in  ourselves.  We  do  not  know  how  the  chasm 
is  bridged.  We  have  no  way  of  explaining  how  spirit 
can  move  matter  nor  how  matter  can  report  itself  to 
spirit.  There  never  was,  and  never  will  be,  a  greater 
mystery.  We  do  not  allow  it  to  disturb  us  overmuch. 
We  go  ahead  and  act  as  though  we  had  a  right  to  do 


12 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


so,  and  we  leave  the  solution  of  the  immense  mystery 
to  some  possible  metaphysician  of  a  remote  age. 
Meantime,  spirit  and  body  work  together  as  though 
they  belonged  together,  which  means  that  spirit  can 
work  through  what  we  call  matter. 

Our  own  connection  with  a  body  raises  the  wonder 
whether  God  as  Spirit  uses  any  medium  or  works 
through  any  secondary  substance  which  is  to  Him 
what  our  bodies  are  to  us.  It  may  be  that  what  we 
call  ether,  that  curious  super-matter  which  fills  the 
universe,  is  the  medium  through  which  His  purposes 
go  forth  and  are  revealed  as  energy,  as  law,  as  mathe¬ 
matical  order,  as  power,  as  beauty,  as  ever  evolving  life. 
Ether  would  be,  then,  the  medium  of  His  presence 
as  the  visible  and  tangible  body  is  the  medium  of  our 
presence.  It  would  not  be  He  any  more  than  the  cor¬ 
poreal  bulk  which  the  scales  weigh  is  I,  but  it  might 
be  thought  of  as  the  garment  through  which  He  ex¬ 
presses  Himself,  the  hand  of  His  power,  the  foot  of 
His  swiftness,  the  transmitter  of  His  will  and  thought. 

On  a  higher  level  life,  with  its  upward  push,  its 
tendency  to  differentiate  into  unique  forms,  and  its 
endless  potency  for  inaugurating  novelty  and  surprise 
might  also  be  a  medium.  On  a  still  higher  level  con¬ 
sciousness  would  be  a  medium  through  which  He  could 
express  Himself,  a  living  gossamer  robe.  There  are, 
again,  all  levels  of  consciousness  from  the  merest  sensi¬ 
tiveness  up  to  the  most  inclusive  self-consciousness. 
Human  personality,  with  its  immense^  submerged 
reaches  of  sub-consciousness  and  its  higher  ranges  of 
ideal  vision,  might  be  regarded  as  the  best  type  of 
medium  yet  known  to  us  for  revealing  His  nature. 

I  have  purposely  avoided  abstract,  high-sounding 
words,  such  as  “infinite,”  “absolute,”  “omnipotent,” 
and  “omniscient,”  because  they  do  not  help  us  to  get 
closer  to  the  real  nature  of  God.  They  run  us  off  into 
the  vague  and  formless,  and  leave  us  with  no  light  on 
our  problem.  If  God  is  to  become  real  for  us,  we  must 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  GOD? 


13 


think  of  Him  in  concrete  terms  and  we  must  use  a 
language  that  has  a  positive  content.  We  must  re¬ 
fuse  to  depend  on  the  constructions  of  logic  and  we 
must  keep  close  to  experience.  We  have  discovered 
that  we  can  study  electricity  or  life  only  where  they 
are  concretely  manifested.  All  our  scientific  progress 
in  the  knowledge  of  electricity,  for  instance,  has  been 
made  by  the  invention  of  ways  of  revealing  it  in 
operation.  The  dynamo,  the  various  types  of  vacuum 
tubes,  the  coherer,  and  a  multitude  of  other  ingenious 
contrivances  have  enabled  us  to  find  out  its  nature, 
its  laws  of  operation,  and  its  practical  application.  If 
we  had  studied  it  in  the  abstract  and  endeavored  to 
deduce  its  essential  qualities  by  logical  processes  alone, 
we  should  not  have  progressed  much  beyond  the  stage 
reached  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  same  general 
facts  are  true  of  the  progress  we  have  made  in  the 
study  of  life.  We  have  got  much  closer  to  the  real 
nature  and  meaning  of  life  by  a  careful,  detailed  study 
of  its  concrete  processes  in  the  various  forms  of  life  in 
our  world.  The  discovery  of  the  life-cell,  the  germ- 
plasm,  the  facts  of  heredity,  the  influence  of  environ¬ 
ment,  the  appearance  of  mutations,  the  immense  im¬ 
portance  of  natural  defection — -these  concrete  facts 
have  steadily  advanced  our  knowledge  of  what  life  is 
and  how  it  works. 

So,  too,  we  can  come  close  to  the  heart  of  religion 
and  get  forward-leading  clues  to  the  nature  of  God 
only  by  turning  to  consider  Him  where  He  is  revealed, 
rather  than  by  thinking  of  Him  in  the  abstract.  The 
other  chapters  of  this  book  will  follow  that  sound 
method.  We  shall  not  leave  God  behind  as  we  go  on 
to  deal  with  the  other  questions  which  lie  before  us. 
Each  study  that  comes  after  this  will  throw  some  light 
on  the  way  God  reveals  Himself — in  Scripture,  ini  man, 
in  society,  through  a  growing  kingdom,  and  in  those 
great  moral  and  spiritual  events  and  purposes  which 
express  His  thought  and  will.  Supremely  is  He  re- 


14 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


vealed  in  that  one  Person  who  is  most  like  Him  and 
the  nearest  like  us,  i.e.,  in  Jesus  Christ. 

The  early  Christian  Fathers  talked  much  of  the 
Logos — the  Word  of  God.  They  meant  by  that  great 
phrase  the  unfolding  and  manifestation  of  God  in  a 
Being  who  summed  up  in  Himself  all  the  intelligence, 
all  the  creative  purposes,  all  the  ideal  ends  and  goals 
of  the  universe — the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  all  that 
is  spiritual.  In  Him  all  things  consist,  i.e.,  cohere, 
St.  Paul  says.  He  is  therefore  the  revealed  principle 
of  intelligence  and  love — the  progressive  Idea  of  the 
God  who  is  working  through  the  visible  world,  through 
history  and  through  man  to  reveal  Him  who  was  and 
is  and  ever  shall  be — the  Foundational  Spirit, 

One  undivided  Soul  of  many  a  soul 
Whose  nature  is  His  own  divine  control 
Where  all  things  flow  to  all  as  rivers  to  the  sea.1 

JThe  interpretation  which  has  been  begun  in  this  chapter  is  car¬ 
ried  on  through  the  next  two. 


CHAPTER  II 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 

By  Rufus  M.  Jones 

Whenever  this  question  has  been  raised  in  the  past 
— and  it  has  probably  been  raised  more  often  than  any 
other  religious  question — the  thought  has  focused  at 
once  on  the  metaphysical  nature  of  Christ.  Was  He 
human  or  was  He  divine?  Did  He  possess  human 
nature  or  divine  nature?  Did  He  belong  to  the  order 
of  beings  whom  we  call  man  or  did  He  belong  to  a 
transcendent  sphere  and  come  down  to  earth  from  a 
heavenly  realm?  That  question,  the  issues  of  which 
have  divided  men  in  almost  every  Christian  century 
into  intense  theological  parties,  presupposes  a  very 
definite  and  at  the  same  time  a  very  ancient  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  universe.  According  to  this  view,  the  world, 
or  the  natural  sphere,  is  sharply  separated  from  an¬ 
other  sphere  which  may  be  called  the  supernatural 
one.  The  sky,  which  in  early  Christian  centuries  was 
supposed  to  consist  of  seven  concentric  crystalline 
spheres,  was  believed  to  form  the  boundary  between 
the  two  realms.  Everything  this  side  of  the  lower 
margin  of  the  boundary  was  considered  to  be  natural, 
everything  the  other  side  of  the  boundary  was  divine, 
i.e.,  supernatural.  One  of  the  main  difficulties  result¬ 
ing  from  this  division  is  that  we  can  say  nothing 
definite  or  positive  about  the  supernatural.  It  be¬ 
comes  a  sheer  blank,  an  empty  phrase.  It  throws 
open  a  vast  realm  for  vain  speculation  and  for  super¬ 
stition  to  flourish  in.  Every  positive  thing  we  say  or 

15 


16 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


think,  every  intelligent  affirmation  we  make,  has  to  do 
with  some  fact  of  life  or  experience  and  so  belongs 
to  the  sphere  of  the  natural.  What  is  left,  therefore, 
for  the  supernatural — for  that  which  has  no  connec¬ 
tion  with  experience — is  what  Herbert  Spencer  called 
“the  great  unknowable.”  This  separation  of  natural 
and  supernatural  almost  necessarily  lands  one  in  the 
bogs  and  jungles  of  agnosticism,  since  we  cannot 
know  what  by  definition  lies  beyond  knowledge. 

The  two  realms  by  this  unfortunate  division  are 
made  wholly  exclusive  and  lie  entirely  outside  each 
other.  Any  interaction  or  commerce  between  them  is 
necessarily  miraculous.  That  which  is  “natural”  can¬ 
not  enter  the  divine  realm,  and  if  ever  there  is  a  projec¬ 
tion  from  the  other  world,  the  divine  world,  into  this 
one,  it  must  be  called  a  supernatural  or  a  miraculous 
occurrence.  The  being  known  as  man,  who  for  theolog¬ 
ical  purposes  is  often  called  “mere”  man,  is  considered 
to  belong  wholly  on  this  side  “the  great  divide”  and 
therefore  to  belong  to  the  realm  of  the  natural.  This 
theory  of  the  universe  quite  obviously  compelled  those 
who  held  it  to  decide  in  which  of  the  two  spheres  Christ 
belonged.  They  were  confronted  with  a  sharp  either - 
or.  If  He  was  divine  it  became  extremely  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  as  history  has  shown,  to  hold  to  His 
humanity,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  if  He  was  genu¬ 
inely  human,  a  real  man,  there  appeared  to  be  no  way 
to  maintain  His  divinity.  One  aspect  or  the  other  was 
bound  to  become  illusory.  The  Arian  view  invalidated 
His  divinity,  the  ancient  orthodox  view  seriously  re¬ 
duced,  if  it  did  not  obliterate,  His  humanity. 

Copernicus  and  his  scientific  followers  in  the  six¬ 
teenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  made  that  ancient 
theory  of  the  universe  forever  impossible.  The  sky 
turns  out  not  to  be  a  dome  at  all.  It  is  as  unreal  and 
unstable  as  is  the  horizon  at  sea.  There  is  no  boundary 
to  the  space  above  our  heads.  We  are  on  a  revolving 
globe  and  what  we  call  “looking  up”  is  just  as  truly 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 


17 


“looking  down/’  The  terms  mean  the  same  thing. 
Those  opposite  us — our  antipodes — seem  to  be  looking 
up  at  the  stars  and  sky,  but  they  are  looking  in  a  dia¬ 
metrically  opposite  direction  to  the  one  in  which  we  are 
looking  when  we  see  the  sky.  We  cannot  preserve  the 
ancient  two-world  view — one  realm  far  above  the  other 
in  a  perpendicular  direction.  There  is  nothing  in 
reality  which  corresponds  to  it.  We  go  on  using  the  old 
terms  and  phrases,  just  as  we  go  on  talking  of  the  “ris¬ 
ing”  and  “setting”  of  the  sun,  but  they  are  only  con¬ 
venient  words,  not  facts  and  realities.  The  division 
between  “natural”  and  “supernatural”  is  difficult  to 
maintain  on  any  theory  of  the  universe.  There  is  no 
known,  no  fixed,  boundary  between  any  such  divided 
realms.  Anything  that  occurs  anywhere  in  the 
universe,  outside  or  inside — in  the  sphere  of  matter 
or  in  the  sphere  of  mind — belongs  in  the  order 
of  the  real,  the  natural.  If  an  event  occurs  at  all,  it 
must  fit  in  and  correlate  with  other  events  and 
happenings.  It  must  operate  in  a  framework  of 
space  or  time.  It  must  submit  to  laws  of  sequence. 
Anything  which  did  not  do  so  could  not  be  experienced, 
could  not  be  an  event.  A  supernatural  occurrence 
would  be  one  which  conformed  in  no  way  to  the  frame¬ 
work  and  structure  of  our  known  universe.  The  mo¬ 
ment  water  becomes  wine,  or  an  ax-head  floats,  or  some 
one  walks  on  water,  or  five  thousand  persons  are  fed 
with  tiny  supplies,  we  have  events  occurring  in  space 
and  time.  We  may  not  know  how  they  were  “caused.” 
We  may  be  ignorant  of  the  laws  that  are  operating  to 
produce  the  event,  but  if  such  things  have  really  oc¬ 
curred  no  one  surely  would  assume  that  they  happened 
“without  any  cause,”  or  that  they  took  place  in  defiance 
of  the  laws  of  the  universe.  Ignorance  of  a  cause  or 
failure  to  discover  the  laws  that  are  operating,  does  not 
remove  an  event  from  the  sphere  of  the  natural  to  some 
other  sphere.  It  only  indicates  the  limits  of  our  range 
of  knowledge.  We  know  now  the  causes  and  laws  of 


18 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


many  occurrences  which  once  were  believed  to  be  super¬ 
natural.  If  they  were  real  events  they  were  not  super¬ 
natural,  they  merely  transcended  man’s  capacities  of 
explanation  at  the  time.  Here,  again,  we  are  evidently  ♦ 
dealing  with  an  artificial  boundary  line,  like  the  hori¬ 
zon,  a  boundary  which  shifts  this  time,  not  as  we  alter 
our  position,  but  as  we  enlarge  the  range  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge.  If  the  spiritual  realm,  the  world  of  divine  reality, 
is  to  reveal  itself  to  us,  it  must  be  in  such  a  way  that 
it  correlates  with  our  normal  experience. 

It  must  be  made  clear,  however,  that  there  is  no 
surrender  of  the  truth  which  these  terms  endeavored 
to  express.  The  terms  were  coined  to  fit  the  ancient 
dualistic  system  which  is  no  longer  a  live  hypothesis 
and  they  are  now  inadequate  for  what  we  want  to  say. 
We  are  in  a  world  that  always  and  everywhere  reveals 
a  Beyond.  We  transcend  whatever  is  before  us.  There 
is  no  here  or  now  which  we  do  not  overleap.  There  is 
therefore  in  every  situation  something  which  defies 
description,  something  supra-naturalistic,  but  not 
something  beyond  the  true  nature  of  things.  Spirit 
essentially  transcends  whatever  reveals  it  or  expresses 
it;  it  is  in  fact  self-transcending.  No  person  can  ever 
put  the  whole  of  himself  into  any  experience  or  mo¬ 
ment  of  his  life.  No  cross-section  of  our  life-  reveals 
'  (  all  we  are.  In  an  unspeakably  greater  sense  that  spirit 
in  whom  we  Kve  and  have  our  being  transcends  what¬ 
ever  we  consider,  examine  or  discuss.  He  is  always 
both  in  and  beyond  the  given  fact  or  event — a  tran¬ 
scending  Reality,  but  not  a  supernatural  one. 

We  have'made  all  our  progress  in  learning  the  nature 
of  life  and  of  electricity,  as  I  have  said  in  the  previous  x 
chapter,  by  studying  them  where  they  break  through 
and  reveal  themselves  in  concrete  and  specific  forms. 
No  one  would  ever  know  what  either  of  the  realities 
was  if  he  insisted  on  dealing  with  it  in  the  abstract  and 
universal  phase  as  a  thing  in  itself.  There  would  be 
nothing  to  say,  except  in  uninforming  negatives — “it 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 


19 


is  not  this/’  “it  is  not  that.”  Everything  is  different 
when  we  turn  to  the  manifestations  for  guidance  and 
direction.  We  have  discovered  a  thousand  things  about 
electricity  by  inventing  contrivances  that  let  it  mani¬ 
fest  itself  in  various  ways  of  operation.  It  drives  our 
cars,  it  carries  our  messages,  it  Tights  our  houses,  it 
transmits  wireless  communications  and  it  radios  our 
music  and  our  sermons  across  a  continent.  It  reveals 
itself  through  one  contrivance  as  magnetism  and  it 
manifests  itself  through  another  as  Roentgen  rays.  We 
have  perhaps  only  begun  to  discover  its  amazing  possi¬ 
bilities,  but  in  any  case  all  we  have  discovered  has  been 
accomplished  by  observing  its  processes  as  they  are  re¬ 
vealed  where  it  breaks  through  our  human  inventions 
— our  dynamos,  our  transmitters  and  transformers,  our 
coherers  and  our  Crookes’  tubes — and  where  it  shows 
its  nature  and  power  in  concrete  form. 

We  have  certainly  come  much  closer  to  the  nature 
and  meaning  of  life  than  that  great  investigator  Aris¬ 
totle  did,  because  we  have  much  better  methods  and 
vastly  more  adequate  means  of  observing  its  concrete 
forms  and  processes  where  it  reveals  itself.  We  do  not 
know,  and  we  never  shall  know,  what  “life”  is  apart 
from  the  organisms  where  it  is  manifested.  It  is  useless 
to  talk  about  a  mysterious  “vital  force”  or  an  unknow¬ 
able  X  behind  the  living  thing.  That  means,  once  mcft'e,  * 
to  turn  away  from  the  only  opportunity  of  discovering 
the  nature  of  life  and  to  search  for  it  in  “the  infinite 
dark  where  all  cows  are  black.”  v  The  flower  i^i  the  cran¬ 
nied  wall  can  give  us  more  light  in  tfen  minutes jon  the  - 
problem  of  life  than  we  could  derive  in  a  Methuselah’s 
span  of  existence  from  studying  it  in  itself  apart  from, 
and  above,  its  particular  forms  and  mutations. 

So,  too,  if  we  expect  to  find  the  divine  and  to  know 
God  in  any  real  sense,  we  must  look  for  Him  where  He 
manifests  Himself  in  the  world  where  our  life  has  its 
scope  and  sphere.  God  is  not  outside  and  above  the 
eternal  nature  of  things.  There  would  be  no  eternal 


20 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


nature  of  things  if  it  were  not  for  God.  He  is  the 
rational  and  spiritual  foundation  of  all  that  is  real  in 
the  universe.  Order,  law,  energy,  coherence,  purpose 
are  always  and  everywhere  revelations  of  God ;  that  is, 
they  imply  and  involve  an  intelligent  and  rational  basis 
• — a  spiritual  structure  underlying  it  all.  God  is  much 
more  than  that  rational  foundation,  but  we  must  begin 
there  if  we  are  ever  to  find  Him.  Order,  law,  energy, 
life — the  central  forces  of  nature — give  as  much  of  a 
revelation  of  God  as  can  be  shown  through  such  an  ex¬ 
ternal  system  of  things,  but  God  vastly  transcends  all 
that,  somewhat  as  instinct  reveals  intelligence,  though 
intelligence  is  immensely  more  than  instinct. 

Beauty,  too,  is  a  revelation  of  God.  The  universe  is 
crammed  with  it.  Wherever  the  telescope  ranges  it 
discovers  beauty,  and  wherever  the  microscope  lets  us 
see  the  minute  and  infinitesimal  there,  too,  we  find  sur¬ 
passing  beauty.  The  world  is  an  amazing  storehouse 
and  conservatory  of  beauty.  It  is  not  just  our  creation. 
It  is  as  much  there  as  atoms  and  molecules  are.  It  has 
its  foundation  in  the  eternal  nature  of  that  rational 
Spirit  that  loves  and  creates  beauty.  But  God  is  more 
than  beauty  and  He  transcends  all  that  it  reveals  and 
suggests. 

Truth  is  a  revelation  of  God.  We  could  not  rise 
above  the  facts  of  sense,  the  now  and  here,  and  organ¬ 
ize  universal  and  necessary  truths  if  there  were  not 
some  fundamental  Reality  who  underlies  all  objects 
-  of  thought  as  well  as  the  finite  mind  that  thinks  and 
binds  them  into  an  inclusive  unity.  But  God  is  more 
than  intellectual  truth.  He  transcends  all  that  can  be 
proved  and  demonstrated. 

*There  is  something  in  the  universe  which  we  call 
goodness.  It  is  hard  to  define,  it  involves  many  things, 
many  aspects,  but  it  is  recognized  on  all  counts  as  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  universe.  iLcannot  be  found  in  a 
world  composed  alone  of  matter  and  energy.  It  does 
\  not  appear  in  the  stage  of  instinct.  It  is  revealed  no- 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST?  21 


where  except  in  persons.  It  is  certainly  a  revelation  of 
God,  if  anything  is.  It  cannot  be  explained  by  “causes.” 
It  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  self-seeking  aims.  It 
is  not  the  outcome  of  social  conventions  or  a  “social 
contract.”  It  is  not  the  product  of  any  scheme  or  con¬ 
trivance.  It  has  broken  through  men — men  of  the 
higher  spiritual  order — and  revealed  itself.  It  always 
comes  from  beyond  the  man.  It  takes  him  above  him¬ 
self  and  it  gives  him  a  conviction  of  alliance  with  more 
than  himself.  If  there  could  be  a  person  who  possessed 
this  trait  of  revealing  goodness  in  supreme  measure  and 
who  possessed  it  without  the  limitations  and  handicaps 
which  hamper  ourselves  and  the  persons  whom  we 
know,  then  surely  we  should  get  the  most  adequate 
revelation  that  it  is  possible  to  have  in  this  framework 
of  time  and  space  in  which  we  live  our  lives. 

In  Jesus  Christ  we  have  such  a  person,  and  we  have 
in  and  through  His  life  the  most  complete  revelation 
that  has  come  to  the  world.  We  must  not  begin  by 
dividing  the  human  from  the  divine  and  by  setting  the 
dual  aspects  into  sharp  opposition.  That  is  the  way  to 
miss  the  very  revelation  we  seek.  We  are  not  limited 
to  a  stubborn  either-or.  This  universe  of  ours,  with  its 
checkerboard  colors  of  black  and  white,  is  essentially  a 
spiritual  world — a  world  groaning  and  travailing  in 
birth-pains;  and  slowly  bringing  forth  the  higher  out 
of  the  lower,  the  spiritual  out  of  that  which  is  natural. 
The  divine  is  not  to  be  found  by  going  off  somewhere 
else.  The  spiritual  is  not  located  in  some  other  sphere. 
The  divine  and  the  spiritual  can  be  found  only  as  they 
break  through  the  temporal  and  the  finite  and  reveal 
themselves  here  in  the  processes  of  this  growing,  un¬ 
folding  universe  which  is,  after  all,  a  spiritual  world  in 
the  making.  Christ  is  both  human  and  divine  and  as 
completely  one  as  the  other.  The  revelation  which 
comes  through  Him  shows  that  the  higher  can  be  in 
every  sense  united  with  the  lower  and  be  revealed 
through  it,  as,  for  example,  is  the  case  when  beauty 


> 


22 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


breaks  through  the  water-drops  of  a  cloud,  or  when  life 
and  consciousness  use  the  medium  of  matter. 

So  completely  are  the  two  aspects  united  in  Christ 
that  we  see  as  in  a  flash  that  at  the  highest  point  hu¬ 
manity  and  divinity  not  only  are  together  but  belong 
together.  There  must  be  something  divine  in  man  and 
something  human  in  God,  and  if  we  are  to  see  the  true 
nature  and  character  of  God,  we  must  see  them  as 
revealed  in  a  Life  which  joins  both  together  in  a  single 
union.  Professor  Harnack  finely  expressed  the  truth  I 
have  in  mind  when  he  said  that  in  Christ  we  have 
“eternity  revealed  in  the  midst  of  time.”  William 
Temple  touched  a  high  spot  when  he  wrote :  “What  is 
God  like?  The  answer  to  that  question  is  ‘Christ.’  And 
when  we  ask,  ‘What  is  Humanity?’  we  look  at  Christ 
to  find  the  answer.”  We  are  no  longer  forced  to  con¬ 
template  a  vague,  abstract,  indeterminate  “unknow¬ 
able”  God — an  inscrutable  X.  We  can  at  least  say 
henceforth  that  God  has  been  revealed  as  a  Christ- 
like  God : 

Most  human  and  yet  most  divine. 

The  flower  of  man  and  God ! 

When  we  go  back  to  the  head-waters  of  the  mighty 
stream  of  Christianity,  we  find,  not  the  formulation  of 
a  set- of  doctrines,  not  the  founding  of  a  new  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  organization,  not  the  forging  of  a  new  body  of  com¬ 
mandments,  nor  the  formation  of  a  new  ritual — we  find 
a  radiant  and  illuminating  personality  who  made  God 
mean  more  than  He  had  ever  meant  before  and  who 
exhibited  a  new  quality  of  life  altogether.  But  while 
His  life  and  personality  were  more  significant  than  any¬ 
thing  He  ever  said  or  did,  He  was  nevertheless  a 
teacher,  a  unique  and  inspiring  teacher. 

He  was  usually  called  by  this  familiar  title,  and  His 
most  intimate  group  of  friends  were  called  “learners” — 
disciples.  His  teaching  was  fresh,  vivid,  unconven¬ 
tional,  and  revealing.  He  shows  plainly  enough  the 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 


23 


influence  of  the  spiritual  leaders  of  His  race  who  had 
preceded  Him,  but  He  never  copies  them,  never  merely 
transmits  the  past,  never  is  a  traditionalist.  He  speaks 
out  of  His  own  experience.  “He  opened  His  mouth  and 
spoke.”  He  is  always  creative,  illuminating,  inspiring. 
He  sets  everything  He  touches  in  a  new  light  ahd  He 
raises  every  truth  which  He  teaches  up  to  a  level  which 
it  had  not  reached  before.  He  is  like  the  householder 
in  His  own  parable  who  brings  out  of  the  storehouse 
“things  new  and  old,”  but  even  the  old  things  under 
His  touch  are  made  new. 

Let  us  review  in  the  briefest  possible  compass  His 
teachings  as  they  can  be  gathered  from  the  most  primi¬ 
tive  sources.  His  consciousness  of  God  as  Father  and 
His  interpretation  of  God’s  deepest  and  most  essential 
nature  underlie  everything  else  which  He  taught  or  did, 
and  therefore  His  teaching  about  God  forms  the  back¬ 
ground  and  foundation  of  everything  in  His  gospel,  or 
“good  news.”  He  never  uses  abstract  and  metaphysical 
words — the  words  which  play  such  a  part  in  the  great 
theological  battles — when  He  speaks  of  God.  His 
warm  and  intimate  word,  “Father,”  is  used  to  express 
the  personal  character  of  God.  It  sets  at  the  front 
God’s  attitude  of  love  and  tender  care.  The  parable 
of  the  prodigal  son,  as  perfect  in  form  as  it  is  in  content, 
brings  this  attitude  of  the  divine  character  up  to  its 
highest  point  of  revelation.  We  discover  to  our  sur¬ 
prise  that  the  blunder  and  sin  and  estrangement  of  the 
son  do  not  change  the  attitude  of  love  in  the  heart  of 
the  Father.  He  does  not  become  a  Father,  He  does  not 
under  any  circumstances  cease  to  be  a  Father.  He 
simply  and  essentially  is  Father.  This  truth  is  even  yet 
only  dimly  recognized  and  has  not  dominated  Christian 
thought,  but  it  was  Christ’s  supreme  mission  to  bring 
men  into  a  consciousness  of  it,  and  in  this  consciousness 
He  himself  lived. 

No  less  emphatic  is  His  teaching  that  men — all  men 
— may  become  sons  of  God,  in  fact,  always  are  poten- 


24 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


tial  sons.  It  does  not  follow,  because  God  is  Father, 
that  all  men  are  by  nature  sons.  Sonship  is  not  a  birth- 
relationship.  It  is  an  attitude  of  heart,  a  spirit,  a  way 
of  life.  Nobody  is  a  son  until  he  wants  to  be  one,  until 
he  discovers  his  opportunity,  wakes  up  to  his  possi¬ 
bilities  and  chooses  to  enter  his  heritage.  God  is 
Father;  we  become  sons.  Sonship  is  a  privilege,  di¬ 
vinely  offered,  but  it  is  also  a  human  achievement.  The 
poorest,  most  defeated  person  in  the  world  has  in  his 
hand  the  key  to  the  Father’s  house  and  may  rise  up 
and  go  home  when  he  will.  This  view  of  human  life 
was  one  of  .the  great  springs  of  the  immense  optimism 
of  Jesus. 

His  central  teaching — His  main  proclamation — was 
the  coming  of  the  reign  of  God  here  in  the  world.  It 
is  not  an  easy  matter  now  to  decide  what  He  meant  by 
His  great  phrase  y  jWiXe ia  rod  deov,  usually  trans¬ 
lated  “Kingdom  of  God,”  but  which  more  properly  is 
rendered  “the  reign  of  God.”  Christ’s  own  generation 
had  formed  an  intense  expectation  of  a  mighty  apoca¬ 
lyptic  event.  They  were  looking  for  a  supernatural 
intervention — a  relief  expedition  from  heaven — which 
would  bring  the  age  to  a  sudden  terminus  and  in¬ 
augurate  a  new  and  golden  epoch.  The  kingdoms  of 
the  world,  with  their  cruel  yoke  of  oppression,  would 
be  ended,  the  slate  wiped  clean,  and  a  new 
age  of  righteousness  and  peace  begun  under  God’s 
anointed  king  who  would  raise  Israel  to  its 
long-delayed  glory. 

Some  scholars  hold  that  Jesus  shared  this  expectation 
and  looked  for  an  apocalyptic  event.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  His  disciples  were  charged  with  vivid  apocalyptic 
hopes,  and  it  is  evident  that  all  His  teachings  have  been 
somewhat  tinged  and  colored  by  the  longings  and  ex¬ 
pectations  of  the  interpreters  through  whom  we  have 
received  them,  but  it  seems  fairly  certain  that  His  own 
conception  of  the  reign  of  God  was  vastly  different 
from  the  crude  political  and  materialistic  hopes  of  His 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 


25 


time.  The  temptations  which  were  surely  as  real  and 
subtle  as  any  which  have  ever  beset  a  human  soul  indi¬ 
cate  that  He  felt  drawn  to  take  the  line  of  least  resist¬ 
ance  and  to  become  the  popular  leader  of  the  nation’s 
hopes.  This  powerful  tendency  appears  to  have 
reached  its  height  in  the  critical  period  in  Jerusalem 
just  before  the  crucifixion.  He  was,  however,  com¬ 
pletely  victorious  in  this  greatest  of  all  struggles,  and 
His  life  revealed  a  wholly  unique  type  of  divine 
reign,  which  even  yet  we  have  not  entirely  compre¬ 
hended. 

The  kingdom,  or  reign,  to  which  He  was  dedicated 
can  be  best  discovered  by  the  course  of  life  and  action 
which  He  took.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  decide  pre¬ 
cisely  what  He  said  on  a  particular  occasion,  but  we 
know  with  a  high  degree  of  certainty  what  He  did  in 
the  crisis  issues  of  His  life.  He  utterly  refused  to  be 
considered  as  the  kind  of  national  figure  that  was  ex¬ 
pected.  Under  no  circumstances  would  He  use  force, 
either  human  or  “superhuman.”  He  absolutely  de¬ 
clined  to  save  Himself.  He  exhibited  unlimited  faith 
in  the  conquering  power  of  love,  and  He  went  to  His 
cross  assured  that  His  sacrificial  death  would  complete 
the  purpose  of  His  life.  He  himself  is  the  perfect  illus¬ 
tration  and  embodiment  of  the  reign  of  God  revealed 
in  the  life  of  a  person.  When  we  ask  what  He  meant 
by  His  teaching  about  the  kingdom,  we  get  our  clearest 
answer  in  the  life  of  this  Divine  Lover  who  went  the 
second  mile  and  who  chose  to  conquer,  not  by  arousing 
the  passionate  populace  nor  by  summoning  legions  of 
angels,  but  by  taking  the  way  of  love  as  no  one  had 
ever  taken  it  before. 

The  reign  of  God,  as  expounded  in  His  message,  is  a 
way  of  life.  It  is  not  a  new  theory  of  wealth  and  pov¬ 
erty  ;  it  is  not  a  change  of  political  dynasty ;  it  is  not  a 
church  organization;  it  is  not  a  new  body  of  doctrine 
or  a  fresh  set  of  commandments,  either  positive  or  nega¬ 
tive.  It  is  a  new  attitude,  a  new  spirit,  a  new  en- 


26 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


thusiasm  and  contagion  of  life.  It  begins  when  a  per¬ 
son  inaugurates  in  his  life  the  vital  relationship  of  son 
to  God  and  the  relationship  of  brother  to  all  other  men. 
It  advances  in  height  and  breadth  as  fast  as  the  full 
implication  of  this  upward  and  outward  relationship  is 
wrought  out  in  the  experience  and  practice  of  creative, 
constructive  love.  Christ  illustrated  His  meaning  in 
simple  figures  of  ordinary,  every-day  life.  Farmers 
planting  mustard  seed,  sowing  grain,  or  fighting  weeds, 
fishermen  sorting  their  fish  from  their  nets,  little  chil¬ 
dren  playing  games  in  the  street,  maidens  going  to  a 
wedding,  merchants  making  gain  with  their  capital, 
shepherds  searching  for  lost  sheep,  women  making 
bread  with  yeast,  travelers  rescued  from  robbers,  fur¬ 
nish  pictorial  imagery  to  illustrate  the  character  of  this 
sway  of  God  and  this  widening  brotherhood  in  men’s 
lives. 

The  beatitudes  and  the  model  prayer  show  its  scope 
and  meaning  more  clearly  than  do  any  other  passages. 
It  “comes”  as  the  will  of  God  is  done  on  earth  through 
men.  It  widens  its  “area”  as  men  learn  to  forgive  as 
God  forgives.  It  is  realized  as  men  begin  to  love  as 
Christ  loved.  It  is  a  way  of  life  which  carries  beatitude 
in  itself  without  any  extraneous  reward — the  blessing 
attaches  to  the  life.  To  hunger  for  larger  righteousness, 
to  be  revealing  mercy,  to  be  pure-hearted,  to  be  a  maker 
of  peace,  is  to  be  of  the  kingdom  and  to  be  an  organ 
of  its  reign,  for  its  reign — the  reign  of  God — is  in  us 
and  not  in  some  capital  city. 

An  ye  heard  a  music,  like  enow 

They  are  building  still,  seeing  the  city  is  built 

To  music,  therefore  never  built  at  all, 

And  therefore  built  forever. 

It  is  a  central  feature  of  Christ’s  message  that  there 
is  a  kind  of  life  which  is  eternal — not  exposed  to  the 
catastrophes  and  disintegrations  which  beset  all  things 
that  belong  in  the  space  and  time  order.  The  phrase 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 


27 


“eternal  life”  is  peculiar  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  but  the 
truth  expressed  by  the  phrase  is  found  throughout  the 
synoptic  Gospels.  Life ,  in  Christ’s  full  sense  of  its 
meaning,  is  eternal — no  attainment  can  ever  exhaust  or 
complete  its  possibilities.  Eternal  does  not  mean  end¬ 
less,  for  that  word  has  to  do  with  time.  The  important 
thing  about  life  as  Christ  thinks  of  it  is  not  that  it 
“goes  on  forever.”  It  is  rather  a  life  of  new  dimensions, 
life  forever  opening  out  and  pushing  forward  in  the 
Godward  direction.  It  is  infinitely  expansive  and  cumu¬ 
lative.  Instead  of  going  on  in  a  straight  line  like  the 
rail  of  the  track,  life  gathers  depth  and  volume  as  a 
cone  does  when  you  go  from  its  apex  downward.  It 
never  occurred  to  Christ,  and  it  never  does  to  those  who 
know  from  within  what  spiritual  life  means,  that  this 
life  in  God  could  be  brought  to  a  terminus  by  a  disaster 
which  wrecked  the  body  or  by  its  slow  decay.  He 
“brought  life  and  immortality  to  light”  by  revealing 
the  new  spiritual  quality  and  power  to  which  life  can 
be  raised. 

To  these  .four  supreme  truths  of  Christ’s  teaching — 
God  as  Father,  men  as  potential  sons  of  God,  the  reign 
of  God  as  a  new  social  order,  life  raised  to  an  eternal 
quality — there  must  be  added  a  fifth  truth  which  radi¬ 
ated  all  His  teaching  and  which  received  its  highest 
expression  and  interpretation  in  His  life.  I  refer  to  His 
method  of  redemption,  His  way  of  moving  men  to 
higher  levels  of  life.  He  turned  away  from  all  the 
ancient  methods  used  to  influence  action — power, 
authority,  the  spur  of  rewards,  the  force  of  fear — and 
He  rested  the  whole  weight  of  His  appeal  upon  the 
attraction  of  self-sacrificing  love  for  others.  The  people 
were  looking  for  a  king,  greater  than  David,  who  would 
effect  his  ends  by  irresistible  power.  He  reversed  all 
expectation.  He  rested  no  claim  upon  power.  There 
are  no  sadder  words  than  those  of  His  friends  after  the 
crucifixion:  “We  thought  that  it  was  He  who  should 
restore  the  Kingdom  to  Israel,”  and  the  mob  said  what 


28 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


everybody  thought:  “He  saved  others,  now  let  Him 
come  down  from  the  cross  and  save  Himself.” 

He  could  not  save  Himself  and  still  be  the  Christ 
who  was  to  regenerate  the  world.  The  way  of  love 
could  be  inaugurated  only  by  love — a  love  of  infinite 
depth  and  patience.  If  men  are  ever  to  be  redeemed 
from  sin  and  selfishness,  it  must  be  by  the  impact  of 
a  love  that  is  freed  from  all  selfishness  and  which 
knows  no  limit  to  what  it  is  ready  to  suffer  in  order  to 
reach  them  and  serve  them.  Lives  are  roused  to  great 
issues  not  by  command  but  by  contagion  of  spirit,  by 
the  attraction  of  a  great  purpose  and  a  glowing  faith. 
Men  do  not  leave  an  old  life  for  a  new,  a  low  level  for 
a  high  one,  until  they  are  fused  and  kindled  by  the 
attraction  of  a  consecrated  leader  who  counts  not  his 
life  dear  unto  himself.  Christ  raised  this  principle  to 
its  nth  degree.  He  proclaimed  it  as  the  essential  trait 
of  God’s  character  and  He  Himself  joyously  accepted 
the  full  cost  and  tragedy  which  attach  to  self-sacri¬ 
ficing,  cooperative  love.  He  does  not  stop  with  the 
mile  which  the  law  requires  and  the  world  expects. 
He  goes  the  gratuitous  second  mile  and  shows  us  what 
life  can  be  when  it  has  reached  the  height  of  radiance 
and  consecration. 

This  is  by  no  means  all  there  is  to  say.  The  writer 
of  the  fourth  Gospel  felt  in  his  day  that  if  everything 
could  be  told  which  Christ  had  said  and  done,  the  world 
could  not  contain  the  books  that  would  be  written. 
The  impact  of  this  Life  on  other  lives,  the  contagion  of 
His  influence,  is  surely  one  of  the  most  impressive  facts 
in  human  history.  The  speculative  theories  about  Him, 
the  endless  conflicts  of  thought  which  have  raged 
around  His  name  and  personality,  are  regrettable  blun¬ 
ders,  but  they  nevertheless  bear  witness  to  the  powerful 
spell  which  His  life  has  thrown  upon  the  race  and  the 
impelling  necessity  which  all  ages  have  felt  to  think 
through  the  meaning  and  implications  of  His  coming 
and  His  going.  We  are  dealing  here  with  something 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  CHRIST? 


29 


like  that  tree  which  the  Norse  hero  tried  to  pull  up, 
but  which  proved  to  be  the  great  Igdrasil  Tree  of  the 
ages,  with  its  roots  running  down  through  the  whole 
world  and  with  the  sap  from  the  central  life  of  the 
universe  feeding  it. 


CHAPTER  III 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 

By  Rufus  M.  Jones 

There  are  multitudinous  ways  of  thinking  of  man. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  one  short  chapter 
could  be  adequate  to  deal  with  this  complex  and  inex¬ 
haustible  subject.  Obviously  we  must  single  out  for 
consideration  here  those  aspects  of  man’s  nature  which 
are  essential  for  religion.  We  are  not  concerned  now 
with  arma  virumque,  but  with  homo ;  not  with  the  hero 
and  his  deeds,  but  with  the  fundamental  nature  of  man 
as  a  spiritual  being. 

In  two  former  chapters  I  have,  with  utmost  brevity 
and  compactness,  interpreted  the  nature  of  God  and 
the  nature  of  Christ.  I  reserved  for  this  chapter  on 
Man  the  treatment  of  a  third  aspect  of  the  divine  na¬ 
ture,  the  holy  Spirit,  for  by  holy  Spirit  we  mean  God 
in  contact  and  relationship  with  human  lives,  God  re¬ 
vealing  Himself  in  and  through  persons.  This  third 
aspect  has  usually  been  feebly  grasped  or  almost  wholly 
neglected.  The  words  of  the  creed,  “I  believe  in  the 
holy  Ghost,”  add  no  information  which  helps  the  be¬ 
liever  to  know  what  his  great  affirmation  means.  And 
when  the  “heretics”  of  the  different  periods  proclaimed 
their  new  Pentecosts  and  called  attention  to  the  inrush- 
ing  energies  of  the  Spirit,  they  were  apt  to  find  their 
evidence  in  abnormal  phenomena  and  in  rare  and  mys¬ 
terious  occurrences.  They  did  not  yet  realize  that  the 
surer  and  sounder  evidence  of  the  Spirit  is  to  be  found 
in  normal,  every-day  processes  of  life,  that  “the  ever- 

30 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 


31 


lasting  sign”  is  that  slow  transformation  of  our  stub¬ 
born  nature,  so  that  the  balsam  comes  in  and  the 
thorns  go  out;  the  sweet  myrtle  appears  where  the 
briers  used  to  be. 

We  know  light  as  luminosity  or  pure  radiance  and 
we  know  light  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  color-band  of  the 
spectrum.  But  that  does  not  exhaust  it.  There  is  still 
a  third  manifestation  of  light  as  wonderful  as  the  other 
two.  This  third  aspect  of  light  is  its  radiant  energy, 
its  photochemical,  or  actinic  energy,  as  it  is  usually 
called.  It  works  remarkable  effects  upon  sensitive 
plates.  It  is,  too,  a  vital  energy,  operating  upon  and 
energizing  all  life,  producing  that  vital  substance  we 
call  chlorophyl  in  plants  and  vitamins  in  food.  Light 
as  energy  is  a  resident  power.  It  is  present  where  it 
operates.  The  sun  is  not  only  a  material  body  ninety- 
one  and  a  half  million  miles  away,  it  is  also  just  as 
truly  here ,  in  the  vital,  actinic  effects  which  our  vast 
and  various  orders  of  life  reveal.  No  light,  no  life. 
So,  too,  we  must  go  on  to  speak  of  God  as  resident, 
immanent,  God  with  us,  a  vital,  revealing,  energizing 
presence,  using  man  as  the  organ  of  His  unending 
operation  and  revelation  in  the  world. 

If  this  is  true,  it  is  a  very  important  fact  about  man 
— the  most  important  fact  about  him — and  it  means 
that  we  must  think  of  man  henceforth  in  different  terms 
from  those  that  have  prevailed  in  the  great  theological 
systems  of  the  past.  It  involves  a  Copernican  revolu¬ 
tion  as  profound  and  far-reaching  as  that  which  has 
reorganized  all  our  astronomical  thinking.  Man  can 
hardly  be  considered  as  “a  poor  worm  of  the  dust,”  if 
he  has  a  capacity  for  God  and  can  become  an  organ  of 
divine  revelation.  We  cannot  accept  at  their  face  value 
statements  which  affirm  the  moral  depravity  of  man, 
if  God  and  man,  as  we  must  believe,  are  essentially  re¬ 
lated.  This  low  estimate  of  man  and  these  pessimistic 
theories  of  man’s  nature  are  partly  responsible  for  the 
long  centuries  of  the  perversion  of  Christianity,  for  the 


32 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


calm  acceptance  of  war  as  a  normal  part  of  life  and 
for  the  base  treatment  of  man  by  man. 

This  medieval  account  of  man,  as  morally  depraved, 
it  should  be  said,  rests  upon  a  great  epic  view  of  the 
universe  which  has  gradually  given  place  to  a  truer 
view,  based  upon  verified  facts.  The  classical  account 
of  this  epic  view  of  the  universe — one  of  the  greatest 
epics  in  human  history — was  written  by  St.  Augustine 
of  Hippo  in  his  City  of  God ,  and  it  was  accepted  for 
the  next  fourteen  centuries  as  though  it  were  absolute 
and  final  truth.  There  were,  of  course,  texts  of  Scrip¬ 
ture,  in  both  Old  and  New  Testaments,  which  seemed 
to  support  it ;  in  fact,  it  was  supposed  to  be  drawn  un¬ 
altered  from  the  wells  of  revelation.  We  now  know, 
however,  that  Plato’s  Timceus,  the  Gnostic  systems  of 
the  second  and  third  centuries,  the  Mystery  Religions, 
Neoplatonism  and  Persian  Mythology,  all  played  a 
very  important  part  in  the  formation  of  this  mighty 
epic  system  which  the  Carthaginian  saint  of  Hippo  be¬ 
queathed  to  the  Christian  centuries  that  followed  him 
and  which  Milton  turned  into  his  great  poem.  Scrip¬ 
ture  texts  furnished  one  source  of  influence  in  the 
making  of  this  view  of  the  world  and  of  man,  but  the 
complicated  intellectual  environment  of  the  early  for¬ 
mative  Christian  centuries  was  a  no  less  important 
source  of  influence,  and  it  must  be  emphatically  said 
that  Augustine’s  theory  of,  the  universe  and  of  man  is 
a  Construction”  which  he  made,  not  something  fur¬ 
nished  to  him  ready-made  in  the  Bible. 

In  any  case,  it  was  a  work  of  extraordinary  genius, 
as  much  so  as  is  Chartres  Cathedral  or  the  greatest 
pictures  of  the  Madonna.  It  suited  the  thought-climate 
of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  especially  in  Latin 
countries,  and  it  grew  to  be  an  indispensable  basis  of 
religion.  It  seemed  to  rest  upon  unquestioned  author¬ 
ity  and  it  gave  an  immense  ground  and  support  for  the 
growing  imperial  conception  of  the  Church.  Man  was 
unable  to  do  anything  toward  his  own  salvation.  He 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 


33 


stood  before  God  without  the  least  claim  of  merit.  He 
was  utterly  dependent  upon  the  Church,  which  was  the 
one  and  only  vehicle  of  Grace,  the  mysterious  in¬ 
strument  of  salvation  in  a  wrecked  world.  When  once 
this  theory  of  man  had  become  established  as  an  essen¬ 
tial  part  of  the  faith  of  Christendom  and  was  woven 
into  the  very  fiber  of  Christian  consciousness,  it  enjoyed 
long  immunity  from  criticism  and  was  accepted  with¬ 
out  serious  examination,  in  the  same  way  as  the  theory 
of  the  four  elements  of  matter  survived  century  after 
century. 

Wherever  deep  and  solitary  souls  in  the  Middle  Ages 
turned  away  from  ecclesiasticism  and  dogma  to  try  the 
venturesome  paths  of  first-hand  experience,  this  ancient 
construction  of  theology  dropped  out  of  focus,  and  these 
persons,  the  great  mystics,  speaking  with  the  authority 
of  inner  conviction,  asserted  that  there  was  something 
in  the  very  structure  of  man  which  linked  him  to  God. 
Their  interpretation  of  man’s  inner  being  was  often 
put  into  cumbersome  scholastic  phraseology,  which  was 
the  best  they  could  do,  but  at  any  rate  the  fact  got 
affirmed  that  there  was  a  divine  Spark — Funklein ,  or 
Ganster,  as  they  called  it — at  the  apex  of  the  soul,  or, 
as  others  put  it,  a  divine  soul  center  or  ground,  which 
kept  man,  here  in  the  midst  of  time  and  mutability, 
unsundered  from  the  great  spiritual  Reality  who  was 
his  origin  and  home.  These  mystics  were  compelled, 
like  other  thinkers  of  their  time,  to  express  themselves 
largely  in  terms  of  Aristotle’s  psychology.  They  were 
not  able  to  break  away  from  the  prevailing  conceptions 
which  their  predecessors  had  slowly  forged  out,  but  at 
least  they  struck  this  clear  note,  that  if  one  goes  down 
far  enough  into  the  deeps  of  man’s  inner  self,  some¬ 
thing  will  be  found  of  God’s  very  nature  and  substance 
there.  God  is  the  foundational  basis  of  man’s  religious 
experience. 

The  sixteenth  century,  with  its  humanist  teachers 
and  its  spiritual  reformers,  saw  a  strong  and  widespread 


34 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


reaction  against  the  dogmatic  theory  of  man’s  corrup¬ 
tion  and  depravity.  The  testimony  of  the  mystics  to 
the  presence  of  God  within  was  strengthened  now  by  a 
great  cloud  of  witnesses,  though  even  yet  there  was  no 
one  who  had  hit  upon  a  new  basic  psychological  inter¬ 
pretation  of  man.  The  Quakers  in  the  seventeenth 
century  gave  this  message  a  new  and  powerful  empha¬ 
sis.  In  fact,  they  form  the  first  organized  body  of 
Christians  who  built  their  entire  faith  upon  the  prin¬ 
ciple  that  something  of  God  is  present  in  every  man. 
They  broke  completely  with  the  Augustinian  concep¬ 
tion  of  man,  raised  in  their  time  to  a  new  stage  of  im¬ 
portance  by  John  Calvin’s  impressive  interpretation  of 
it.  Their  famous  phrase  was  the  “inward  Light,”  or  the 
“divine  Seed,”  which  they  set  over  against  the  Calvin- 
istic  view  of  man,  who  was  thought  of  as  totally 
corrupt  and  beginning  life  handicapped  by  the  inheri¬ 
tance  of  seeds  of  sin  implanted  in  the  soul.  Quakerism, 
in  its  historical  significance,  can  be  rightly  understood 
only  as  a  profound  revolt  against  the  Calvinistic  inter¬ 
pretation  of  man. 

The  Quakers  meant  by  their  inward  Light  what  the 
noblest  of  the  mystics  had  meant  by  the  divine  ground 
or  foundation  of  the  soul.  They  believed  that  man  is 
not  separated  by  a  chasm  or  isolated  from  God.  Some¬ 
thing  of  God,  something  of  that  highest  spiritual  Na¬ 
ture — that  World  within  the  world  we  see — is  formed 
into  the  structure  of  the  human  soul,  so  that  it  is  never, 
even  though  “born  and  banished  into  mystery,”  beyond 
hail  of  its  true  source  and  home,  and  never  without  the 
possibility  of  divine  assistance  and  communion.  The 
early  Quakers,  like  their  mystical  predecessors,  were 
weak  in  psychology  and  were  unable  to  think  out  the 
full  import  of  their  experience  or  of  their  significant 
phrase,  the  inward  Light,  but  in  any  case  they  broke 
with  that  ancient  epic  theory  of  man  which  their  con¬ 
temporary,  John  Milton,  just  at  that  very  time  was  do¬ 
ing  so  much  to  glorify.  They  leaped  to  the  position  that 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 


35 


each  newborn  child  is  a  new  Adam  fresh  from  the  crea¬ 
tive  hand  of  God  and  bears  within  him  the  mark  of  a 
divine  origin  and  of  a  divine  destiny.  He  comes  to  his 
great  experiment  here  in  this  strange  mixed  world 
equipped  with  something  which  only  God  Himself 
could  have  put  in  him,  something  spiritual,  something 
capable  of  vital  response  to  the  environing  presence  of 
the  living  Spirit.  He  may  live  upward  or  he  may  live 
downward,  for  he  is  free  to  choose,  but  he  can  never 
wholly  obliterate  the  spiritual  endowment  which  makes 
him  something  more  than  “mere  man.”  In  the  hush 
and  silence  of  the  corporate  group  which  the  Quakers 
raised  to  an  immense  importance,  they  believed  man 
could  become  aware  of  that  More  than  himself  revealed 
within  himself. 

Not  only  has  man  something  spiritual  in  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  his  being,  but  the  Quakers  further  believe  that 
God  is  essentially  Spirit.  He  is  Life  and  Thought  and 
Love  and  Goodness  in  unceasing  revelation  and  action. 
He  is  the  near  and  constant  environment  of  the  soul,  as 
surely  as  the  ocean  is  the  environment  of  the  islands 
which  rise  out  of  it.  The  reason  there  could  once  be  a 
supreme  revelation  of  God  in  one  historical  Person  was 
just  because  God  can  pour  His  Spirit  around  and 
through  a  sensitive,  receptive  Life  that  wills  to  be  an 
organ  of  His  manifestation.  The  religious  life  for  a 
man  truly  begins  with  the  personal  discovery  of  these 
inner  divine  resources.  Man  leaps  into  life  and  power 
as  soon  as  he  begins  to  recognize  and  appreciate  the 
springs  of  spiritual  energy  ready  at  his  hand  to  be 
drawn  upon  by  his  own  initiative  of  will.  From  be¬ 
ginning  to  end  religion  is  vital — it  is  cooperation  and 
fellowship  with  God.  It  is  drawing  in  and  sending  forth 
the  vital  energies  of  the  resident  Spirit. 

The  faith  of  the  Quaker  in  the  inward  Light  does  not 
rest  upon  traditional  authority,  it  is  not  a  theory  con¬ 
structed  out  of  ancient  texts.  It  is,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
vital  and  significant,  a  fact  of  experience.  Inward 


36 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


Light,  if  it  is  to  be  real,  something  more  than  a  phrase, 
must  be  something  seen  and  felt  and  known.  Light  is 
light  only  when  it  is  apprehended  and  responded  to  by 
an  awakened  consciousness  aware  of  it.  Inward  Light 
ceases  to  be  of  any  value  to  the  world  as  soon  as  it  is 
turned  into  a  dull,  scholastic  theory,  hidden  away  in  a 
leather-covered  book.  The  whole  significance  of  the 
Quaker  movement  was  its  revolt  from  theories  and 
notions  and  its  appeal  instead  to  experience.  There 
has  always  been,  however,  a  subtle  tendency  to  slide 
back  to  the  sovereignty  of  phrases  and  to  suppose  that 
spiritual  battles  could  be  won  by  coining  a  magic  word. 
But  if  we  have  no  testimony  of  consciousness  to  God’s 
immediate  presence,  if  we  cannot  say,  as  George  Fox 
could:  “I  know  God  experimentally  and  have  the  key 
that  opens,”  it  is  in  vain  for  us  to  talk  of  theories  of 
inward  Light. 

If  this  great  experience  is  real,  as  it  appears  to  be, 
and  if  the  claim  which  the  Quakers  have  made  for  two 
centuries  and  a  half  is  sound,  namely,  that  God  reveals 
Himself  in  man,  then  they  have  discovered  a  new  fact 
about  man,  something  which  the  Augustinian  theology 
did  not  sufficiently  know.  According  to  this  view,  a 
Beyond  always  reveals  itself  within.  Man  is  always 
and  everywhere  himself  plus  a  More  than  himself.  He 
is  a  finite  center  through  which  an  infinite  and  eternal 
Spirit  works  and  acts.  To  be  man  is  to  be  more  than 
the  fragment  called  “mere  man,”  just  as  we  now  know 
that  matter  is  never  “mere  matter” ;  it  consists  of  cen¬ 
ters  of  tension  where  transcending  energies  break 
through  and  reveal  themselves.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  matter  by  itself.  Wherever  there  is  matter  there  is 
an  exhibition  of  cohesion,  gravitation,  and  other  forces 
which  sweep  beyond  and  transcend  the  tiny  fragment 
called  “matter.”  The  entire  universe  is  behind  the 
fragment. 

This  conclusion,  which  the  mystics  reached  by  a  flash 
of  intuitive  insight  and  which  the  Quakers  persistently 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 


37 


supported  by  their  experience  and  their  group-testi¬ 
mony,  received  much  confirmation  from  leaders  of 
thought  and  creators  of  literature  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  Immanuel  Kant  (1724-1804)  laid  the  solid 
foundation  for  the  new  conception  of  man  and  the 
universe  which  marks  the  last  century.  Man  is  no 
longer  thought  of  after  the  manner  of  Locke,  as  possess¬ 
ing  a  passive  mind  into  which,  as  into  an  empty  recep¬ 
tacle,  the  external  world  conveys  ideas  of  its  nature  and 
its  activities.  On  the  contrary,  man  as  a  self-conscious 
being,  is  a  creative  center  and  cooperates  in  the  making 
of  the  world  which  he  beholds.  Space  and  time  are 
forms  of  his  own  consciousness,  not  “things”  which  he 
finds  ready  made.  So,  too,  cause  and  the  other  neces¬ 
sary  relationships  which  link  the  parts  of  the  world  into 
one  ordered  whole,  making  law  and  purpose  appear 
everywhere,  are  facts  of  the  mind,  not  facts  somewhere 
outside  the  mind.  And  these  finite  minds  of  ours  which 
are  loaded  with  the  spiritual  tools,  by  which  the  world 
of  space  and  time  is  built,  reveal  within  themselves  a 
still  deeper  world  of  moral  sublimity  and  grandeur.  A 
categorical  imperative,  Kant  believed,  is  imbedded  in 
the  structure  of  every  self-conscious  mind,  commanding 
him  to  act  in  such  a  way  as  to  treat  every  person, 
whether  himself  or  another,  always  as  an  end,  never  as 
a  means,  which,  being  translated  into  common  speech 
means  to  act  always  so  as  to  enlarge  and  develop  per¬ 
sons,  never  to  use  them  as  things  or  as  tools.  And  Kant 
sees  plainly  enough  that  this  extraordinary  kind  of  a 
self-conscious  person,  with  his  creative  powers,  presup¬ 
poses  a  great  foundational  spiritual  universe  underly¬ 
ing  and  unifying  all  our  personal  selves  into  one 
spiritual  kingdom  in  which  the  Whole  cooperates  with, 
and  works  through,  each.  Kant’s  successors,  less  cau¬ 
tious  and  restrained  than  he  was,  carried  the  implica¬ 
tions  of  self-consciousness  and  of  moral  personality 
very  much  farther  than  he  was  ready  to  go.  Their  sys¬ 
tems  were  too  involved  and  complicated  for  the  com- 


38 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


mon  man  to  grasp.  Their  philosophical  jargon  and 
metaphysical  patois  sealed  their  books  with  seven  seals 
for  the  untrained  reader.  But  the  poets  and  literary 
geniuses  of  the  nineteenth  century  caught  up  their 
ideas  and  sent  them  out  broadcast  in  winged  words. 

Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Carlyle,  and  Emerson  are  the 
four  most  important  early  transmitters  of  this  enlarged 
conception  of  man  as  an  organ  of  the  living  God.  The 
poetry  of  Wordsworth  is  everywhere  charged  with  this 
new  message.  Carlyle  and  Emerson  are  great  prophets 
of  it  in  prose  touched  with  the  quality  of  poetry.  Cole¬ 
ridge  is  the  most  systematic  of  its  early  literary  inter¬ 
preters — especially  in  his  Aids  to  Reflection  and  his 
Confessions  of  an  Inquiring  Spirit.  He  was  the  first  of 
English  writers  to  introduce  the  important  distinction 
between  “Understanding”  and  “Reason”  in  man.  Un¬ 
derstanding,  according  to  his  teaching,  is  the  faculty  by 
which  man  argues,  syllogizes,  categorizes,  demonstrates, 
proves,  while  Reason  is  a  spiritual  capacity  and  endow¬ 
ment  which  raises  man  above  the  realm  of  space  and 
time  and  mechanism,  and  enables  him  to  partake 
directly  of  God  and  become  a  revealer  of  Him.  Re¬ 
ligion  is  thus,  according  to  Coleridge,  not  something 
mysteriously  superadded  to  man  from  outside  himself. 
It  is,  like  beauty  and  goodness,  a  function  of  his  own 
higher  capacities  of  life  when  they  are  normally  ex¬ 
panded,  opened  out,  and  responsive  to  the  spiritual 
environment  of  man’s  true  nature.  This  insight  of 
Coleridge  led  him  to  the  discovery  of  a  fresher  and 
truer  basis  of  authority  than  that  which  had  previously 
prevailed  in  Christian  circles.  The  old  basis  was  tra¬ 
ditional  and  dogmatic  and  therefore  weak  and  pre¬ 
carious.  It  asserted  instead  of  verifying.  Coleridge, 
following  Kant,  found  a  spiritual  constitution  in  the 
very  nature  and  structure  of  man’s  rational  being,  so 
that  the  fundamental  verities  of  religion  can  be  verified 
as  surely  as  can  the  other  values  of  human  life. 

Oddly  enough,  the  discovery  of  the  principle  of  evolu- 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 


39 


tion,  made  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  and  the  con¬ 
clusion  which  goes  with  it,  that  man  is  organically 
linked  up  in  origin  with  the  lower  animals,  instead  of 
degrading  man  and  making  him  seem  a  mere  “naturalis¬ 
tic”  being,  has,  on  the  whole,  had  just  the  opposite 
effect.  It  has  resulted  in  the  emergence  of  a  nobler 
conception  of  God  as  immanent,  and  a  loftier  view  of 
man  as  essentially  partaking  of  God  and  sharing  with 
Him  in  the  slow  creative  task  of  making  a  spiritual 
world,  a  kingdom  of  God.  There  has  appeared,  to  be 
sure,  in  some  scientific  circles,  a  strong  set  in  the  ma¬ 
terialistic  direction,  a  tendency  to  level  down  and  to 
explain  later  and  higher  forms  in  terms  of  earlier  and 
lower  ones.  But  that  is  only  one  tendency  among 
many  others.  Those  who  have  come  under  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  idealistic  philosophy  and  the  noblest  litera¬ 
ture  of  the  nineteenth  century  have  found  in  the  evolu¬ 
tionary  principle  the  solidest  basis  for  their  expectation 
of  a  growing,  unfolding,  spiritual  order.  They  mark  in 
the  long  series  of  cosmic  process  a  steady,  climbing 
ascent  of  life.  The  curve  is  ever  not  quite  a  circle.  It 
does  not  swing  back  to  the  point  where  it  began.  It 
winds  upward  like  a  spiral,  each  loop  a  little  higher 
than  the  previous  turn,  though  sometimes,  no  doubt, 
there  are  depressions,  delays,  and  backward  curves. 
We  have,  at  any  rate,  got  forward  since  the  days  of  the 
“pithecanthropos.”  The  “pithec”  has  dropped  away 
and  only  “anthropos”  is  left.1  Man  is  no  longer  hy¬ 
phenated,  though  he  still  bears  in  both  mind  and  body 
some  of  the  “stigmata”  of  the  past.  But  if  he  carries 
the  markings  and  some  hereditary  traits  of  beings  lower 
than  himself,  he  also  carries  in  himself  the  forecast  and 
prophecy  of  better  things  in  front.  “He  partly  is  and 
wholly  hopes  to  be.”  Man  sometimes  seems  very 
“common  and  unclean,”  still  close  to  the  clay  from^ 
which  his  body  has  emerged,  but  yet  there  are  in  the 
best  of  the  race  plain  indications  of  connection  with  a 
*See  J.  Macbride  Sterrett’s  Modernism  in  Religion,  p.  3. 


40 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


spiritual  world  and  of  kinship  with  God.  There  is 
something  in  us,  however  it  got  there,  which  is  not  clay, 
nor  even  finer  material  stuff — a  strain  of  spirit  which 
links  us  with  the  Spirit  that  works  through  matter, 
with  hints  and  foregleams  of  a  goal  worth  the  strange, 
long  journey. 

My  friend  T.  Rhondda  Williams,  of  Brighton, 
England,  has  admirably  expressed  in  recent  articles 
what  I  have  been  saying  about  the  fundamental  capac¬ 
ity  of  man.  “His  spiritual  root,”  he  says,  “goes  down 
into  the  soul  of  eternity;  everything  in  his  experience 
is  related  to  something  that  transcends  that  experience. 
The  human  spirit  cannot  be  exhausted  of  significance, 
because  it  is  rooted  in  the  universal  life  of  God.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  mere  human  nature.  This  is  why 
neither  physical  science  nor  psychology  can  give  any 
exhaustive  description  of  man.  Physical  science  has  a 
wonderful  description  to  give  of  his  body;  psychology 
has  many  interesting  things  to  say  about  his  mind,  but 
there  is  an  evasive  secret  about  his  inner  life  which 
they  cannot  get  at.  It  is  this  inexhaustible  depth  in 
the  human  which  goes  down  into  the  eternal  life  of  God 
that  makes  religion  inevitable  and  indestructible. 
Every  sacred  book  might  be  burned,  and  every  temple 
razed  to  the  ground,  but  religion  could  not  be  destroyed 
without  destroying  man  himself.  There  have  been  end¬ 
less  controversies  about  the  origin  of  religion,  but  its 
real  origin  is  in  the  Eternal  Spirit  working  within  the 
human  spirit.  .  .  .  The  root  of  man’s  spiritual 
strength  always  lies  in  the  consciousness  of  his  relation 
to  the  infinite  Life  which  is  God.  This  consciousness 
admits  of  degrees:  it  may  be  weak,  it  may  be  strong; 
it  may  be  only  a  glimmer,  it  may  be  a  full  orb ;  it  may 
be  a  feeble  stream,  it  may  be  a  flood  tide.” 

I  come  back,  then,  to  the  point  which  is  central  in 
my  three  chapters  in  this  little  book,  namely,  that  God 
is  Spirit  and  therefore  reveals  Himself  at  the  highest 
and  best  through  man  who,  in  his  measure,  is  also  spirit. 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  MAN? 


41 


Some  men  live  downward  and  focus  their  attention 
upon  things  that  are  seen  and  tangible.  They  hardly 
believe  any  testimony  of  man’s  spiritual  nature.  There 
are  others,  however,  who  live  out  beyond  the  fringes  of 
the  things  they  see  and  handle  and  are  all  the  time 
aware  of  “intimation  clear  of  wider  scope.”  They  care 
little  for  formal  arguments  to  prove  God’s  existence, 
for  they  no  longer  seek  for  a  God  on  Olympus  or  above 
the  sky  or  outside  somewhere,  working  as  an  architect. 
God  for  them  is  the  rational  foundational  ground  of  all 
that  is  real.  We  find  Him  when  we  enjoy  beauty.  We 
prove  Him  whenever  we  discover  truth.  We  are  with 
Him  and  in  Him  whenever  we  love  with  a  love  which 
rises  above  self  and  gives  itself  to  another.  He  is  there 
whenever  we  suffer  and  agonize  over  sin  and  wrong, 
and  dedicate  our  will  to  make  righteousness  and  good¬ 
ness  triumph. 

Does  the  fish  soar  to  find  the  ocean, 

The  eagle  plunge  to  find  the  air? 

So  we  do  not  need  to  go  “somewhere”  to  find  God.  We 
only  need  to  be  something.  We  need  to  hate  our  sin 
and  failure,  our  pettiness  and  narrowness  of  vision,  to 
come  back  home  from  the  arid  land  of  the  stranger,  and 
to  rise  from  our  isolated,  solitary  aims  and  be  merged 
in  life  and  love  and  spirit  with  Him  who  is  knocking  at 
our  souls,  and  lo !  we  have  found  Him  and  He  is  ours 
and  we  are  His. 


CHAPTER  IV 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE? 

By  Willard  L.  Sperry 

Christians  have  always  held  that  the  drama  of  the 
human  soul  finds  its  most  adequate  literary  statement 
in  the  Bible,  and  that  the  Scriptures  contain  the  essen¬ 
tial  elements  of  a  maturing  and  a  matured  religion. 
We  turn,  with  an  initial  interest,  to  see  what  part  the 
order  of  external  nature  plays  in  the  two  Testaments. 

The  Bible  begins  with  a  picture  of  a  man  and  a 
woman  in  a  garden.  It  ends  with  a  vision  of  a  vast 
ideal  city,  compassing  within  its  four  walls  a  citizenship 
which  no  man  can  number.  In  so  far  as  all  religion  finds 
its  point  of  departure  and  vernacular  symbols  in  the 
conditions  of  that  common  life  which  it  seeks  to  inter¬ 
pret  and  inspire,  the  causes  of  this  change  of  scene  are 
perfectly  plain. 

The  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  had  its  origins 
near  to  nature,  if  not  actually  in  nature.  The  faith  of 
the  Hebrews  was  kindled  in  the  desert,  passed  through 
a  period  of  nomadism,  and  then  came  to  rest  in  a  settled 
pastoral  life.  The  little  walled  towns  which  the  early 
Hebrews  built  were  hardly  more  than  fortresses  for 
military  emergency.  They  never  incarnated  the  genius 
of  Judah  and  Israel.  The  tides  of  great  empires,  to  the 
north  and  the  south,  rolled  back  and  forth  across  the 
land  for  a  thousand  years  before  Christ,  but  after  they 
had  passed  the  shepherds  and  the  plowmen  and  the 
vine-dressers  lingered  on  the  soil.  As  the  result  of  this 
basic  fact  the  Testament  of  this  people  is  everywhere 

42 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  43 


graciously  inspired  by  a  tender  intimacy  with  the  gen¬ 
tler  aspects  of  the  natural  world.  And  certain  of  its 
more  austere  passages  are  unmatched  in  any  literature, 
for  reverent  wonder  before  the  felt  immensities  of 
desert,  mountain,  sea,  and  star-strewn  sky.  In  the 
religious  imagery  of  Psalm,  Prophecy,  and  Wisdom 
books  there  is  a  “freshness  of  the  early  world,”  and 
both  their  devout  insight  into  present  circumstance 
and  their  indomitable  revolutionary  hope  are  drawn 
from  a  life  that  was  lived  near  the  soil  and  in  the  open 
air  under  the  overarching  heavens. 

The  Gospels  take  up  the  story  and  carry  it  into  a 
world  of  little  villages  hard  by  a  lake.  The  fisherman 
is  added  to  the  plowman  and  the  vine-dresser.  During 
his  years  of  youth  and  early  manhood  Jesus  was  a  car¬ 
penter.  But,  strangely  enough,  the  Carpenter  gave  us 
no  parables  from  the  workshop.  His  words  are  words 
of  the  sheepfold,  the  fishing  boat,  and  the  fields.  He 
is  never  more  deeply  and  truly  revealed  than  in  His 
sayings  about  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  the  single  spar¬ 
row  fallen  to  the  ground.  The  Gospels  reflect  the  sen¬ 
sitiveness  of  His  race  to  the  natural  world.  They  antici¬ 
pate,  prophetically,  certain  moral  problems  in  the  order 
of  nature  keenly  felt  to-day.  But  there  is  no  suggestion 
in  the  Gospels  that  the  order  of  external  nature  is  either 
an  end  or  a  problem  in  itself.  Jesus’  interest  was  an 
interest  in  men,  and  He  used  the  symbols  of  the  soil  and 
the  sea,  not  to  point  the  way  to  a  reality  apart  from 
man,  but  to  interpret  the  life  of  man  with  man  under 
God. 

With  the  later  New  Testament  the  scene  shifts  again, 
and  finally,  from  the  soil  to  the  cities.  Paul  seems 
never  to  have  fingered  in  conscious  contemplation  of 
the  natural  world.  Its  order  is  taken  for  granted  and 
ignored  in  the  Apostle’s  intense  preoccupation  with  the 
interior  dramas  of  the  human  soul,  and  with  the  inter¬ 
action  of  man  and  man  in  a  socially  complex  order. 
The  mountains  of  Tarsus,  the  slopes  of  Lebanon,  “the 


44 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


Isles  of  Greece,  the  Isles  of  Greece,”  past  which  he 
sailed  upon  his  missions,  the  wild  wonder  of  “Eurocly- 
don” — these  seem  to  have  said  nothing  and  suggested 
nothing  to  the  mind  of  Paul.  He  was  essentially  a 
man  of  the  cities. 

Here  and  there  in  the  closing  pages  of  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament  there  are  fleeting  glimpses  of  the  natural  world 
under  sentence  of  death  and  reverting  to  old  chaos,  but 
there  is  no  intimation  that  religion  may  be  learned  or 
unlearned,  even  in  parable,  in  the  school  of  nature. 
And  the  Bible  ends  with  its  vision  of  the  Heavenly 
City,  obviously  conceived  and  proffered  to  the  mind 
of  man  as  a  foil  and  fulfilment  of  all  that  man  aspired 
to  be  and  was  not  in  the  overtopping  fact  of  the  classi¬ 
cal  world,  the  fact  of  Imperial  Rome. 

This  “metropolitan”  stamp  which  the  Apostolic  and 
sub-Apostolic  ages  put  upon  Christian  thought  per¬ 
sisted,  almost  unchanged,  until  the  dawn  of  the  Roman¬ 
tic  Movement  in  the  early  nineteenth  century.  With 
the  possible  exception  of  St.  Francis,  whose  childlike 
love  and  trust  of  all  nature  are  an  independent  moral 
miracle  in  Christian  history,  the  makers  of  Christian 
thought  and  Christian  institutions  seem  to  have  drawn 
little  suggestion  or  spiritual  insight  from  the  outer 
world.  The  noblest  writing  of  the  first  five  hundred 
years  of  our  era  found  its  occasion  in  human  institu¬ 
tions  rather  than  in  the  flowers  of  the  field  and  birds 
of  the  air — Augustine’s  “City  of  God.”  Through  the 
Middle  Ages  we  have  fleeting  glimpses  of  saintly  men 
going  about  the  ways  of  the  world  with  their  cowls 
drawn  low  over  their  eyes,  their  gaze  turned  inward. 
We  see  Bernard  crossing  the  Alps.  We  hear  his  fellows 
at  the  close  of  day  make  casual  mention  of  the  great 
mountains  they  have  passed.  And  we,  who  journey  to 
Switzerland  to  lift  our  eyes  to  the  eternal  snows,  won¬ 
der  at  his  question,  “What  mountains?”  The  Renais¬ 
sance  gave  back  to  the  non-religious  world  an  artificial 
and  self-conscious  feeling  for  nature,  but  this  emotion 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  45 


was  too  shallow  to  give  passage  to  the  deeper  religious 
impulses  of  the  time,  and  nothing  of  this  spurious  pa¬ 
ganism  passed  into  the  religion  of  the  Reformation. 
Erasmus  follows  Bernard  across  the  Alpine  pass  and 
spends  the  hours  of  transit  composing  an  essay  upon 
Old  Age !  In  so  far  as  Calvinism  was  conscious  of  the 
order  of  external  nature  it  looked  upon  it  with  distrust 
and  turned  away  to  ponder  the  superior  glories  of  Total 
Depravity  and  Limited  Election.  If  John  Calvin  ever 
saw  the  lone  sparrow  fallen  to  the  ground  he  passed  by 
on  the  other  side. 

Until  finally  our  modern  world  began  to  dawn,  in 
which  the  order  of  nature  was  prophesied  anew  by 
Bacon,  Pascal,  and  Galileo ;  truly  seen  and  deeply  felt 
by  Blake  and  Wordsworth;  interpreted  as  a  vast 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect  by  Laplace,  Faraday,  Dar¬ 
win,  Huxley,  Spencer,  and  their  successors;  and  now 
bequeathed  to  us  partly  as  a  tremendous,  imperious, 
external  reality  dwarfing  the  little  life  of  man,  and 
partly  as  an  inscrutable  moral  problem.  And  there,  for 
thoughtful  men,  the  matter  rests  to-day. 

“How  shall  we  think  of  nature?”  The  problem,  in 
its  initial  statement,  concerns  the  premises  of  our  think¬ 
ing  quite  as  much  as  the  conclusions  of  our  thinking. 
In  spite  of  all  that  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its 
romanticism  and  its  severe  sciences,  did  to  recover  our 
lost  consciousness  of  the  natural  world,  we  belong  to  an 
age  which  does  not  instinctively  turn  to  nature  for  the 
occasion  of  the  spiritual  life,  nor  for  its  statement  either 
as  symbol  or  reality,  nor  for  its  ideal  destiny.  Our 
point  of  view  is  far  more  that  of  Paul  than  that  of  Job 
and  the  Psalmist. 

For  the  plainest  cultural  fact  about  our  time  is  the 
steady  drift  from  the  soil  to  the  cities,  and  with  this 
latest  shifting  of  the  human  scene  there  has  been,  in 
latter  years,  a  fresh  loss  of  those  ways  of  thinking  of 
life  which  have  their  rise  in  an  intimate  feeling  for  the 
soil,  the  sea,  and  the  sky.  Neither  the  Romantic  Move- 


46 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


ment  in  literature  nor  the  steady  spread  of  the  natural 
sciences  has  held  its  own  against  the  growth  of  the 
metropolitan  mind.  We  know  more  of  the  ways  of 
nature  as  classified  in  a  text-book  or  displayed  in  a 
laboratory  than  men  ever  knew  before.  But  we  have 
less  immediate  personal  experience  of  the  order  of  na¬ 
ture  than  any  generation  ever  had.  We  think  in  the 
terms  of  empire  and  mechanics  and  ticker  tapes.  We 
know  more  about  the  fluctuations  of  wheat  in  the  pit 
than  about  the  waving  grain  of  the  prairies.  So  that 
Sir  Arthur  Thomson,  who  is  making  a  brave  attempt 
to  recover  for  the  common  mind  its  dimmed  vision  of 
the  external  world,  can  say  that  the  love  of  nature  has 
been  “lost  for  a  while  in  ultra-urban  conditions.” 

And  the  second  premise  of  our  thinking,  despite  the 
spread  of  the  natural  sciences  in  the  past  hundred  years, 
is  the  correlative  rise  of  humanism,  a  steadily  deepen¬ 
ing  consciousness  of  the  major  dignity  and  worth  of  the 
person  and  experiences  of  man. 

The  true  spiritual  drama  of  the  last  hundred  years 
is  to  be  found  in  the  struggle  of  the  soul  of  man  to  hold 
its  own,  and  to  reassert  itself  victoriously  in  the  face  of 
paralyzing  immensities  progressively  revealed  by  the 
natural  sciences.  Pascal  sensed  all  this,  prophetically, 
when  in  the  seventeenth  century  he  pondered  the  reced¬ 
ing  boundaries  of  stellar  space  and  attempted  to  recon¬ 
cile  his  conflicting  impressions  of  the  littleness  and  the 
greatness  of  man.  And  he  gave  to  the  generations  that 
succeeded  him  the  paradox  which  gathers  up  all  the 
profounder  history  of  the  human  soul  in  the  interven¬ 
ing  years,  “Man  is  little  because  he  is  so;  but  he  is 
truly  great  because  he  knows  it.”  The  incredible  seons 
of  geologic  time  and  the  unimaginable  light-years 
which  measure  astronomical  space  have  been  used  to 
club  us  to  our  knees  and  beat  us  into  submissive  and 
impotent  silence.  This  is  the  first  obvious  fact  about 
the  history  of  modern  thought.  But  the  second  and 
profounder  truth  is  to  be  found  in  Pascal’s  word, 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  47 


“Were  the  Universe  to  crush  him — this  weakest  reed 
in  nature — man  would  still  be  more  noble  than  that 
which  has  slain  him,  because  he  knows  he  dies.”  If  the 
order  of  external  nature  has  sought  latterly  to  teach  us 
that  we  are  littler  than  we  know,  it  has  never  entirely 
vanquished  “man’s  unconquerable  mind,”  and  all  the 
gathering  humanism  of  these  latter  years  rises  up  to 
chant  its  inviolate  faith  that  in  realizing  our  place  in 
nature  we  are  greater  than  we  know.  In  short,  we  have 
taken  new  refuge  in  the  contemplation  of  the  essential 
nobility  of  inner  man,  as  against  all  that  is  dark,  in¬ 
scrutable,  and  seemingly  irrational  in  what  Huxley 
once  called  “the  passionless  impersonality  of  the  un¬ 
known  and  the  unknowable.” 

There  was  a  little  upper  room  in  a  Boston  hotel,  look¬ 
ing  out  upon  the  squat  tower  of  Trinity  Church,  where 
Phillips  Brooks  used  often  to  stop.  One  day  a  friend, 
coming  to  his  room,  asked  him  if  he  did  not  sometimes 
hunger  to  get  away  from  the  city  and  back  again  into 
the  wide  fields  and  open  air  of  the  countryside.  And 
this  Christian  humanist  went  to  the  window  and  looked 
out  for  a  moment  and  then  turned  and  said  “No,”  .that 
the  chimney  pots  of  Boston  were  dearer  to  him  than  all 
the  beauties  of  nature.  There  is  the  authentic  voice 
of  our  own  time.  There  is  the  record  of  a  hundred 
years  of  stern  mental  fight  and  its  homely  conclusion. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  we  men  of  to-day  do  not  live 
so  near  to  nature  or  see  nature  with  as  single  an  eye 
as  many  of  the  generations  gone.  It  is  also  true  that 
we  can  never  recover  the  first  fresh  raptures  of  a 
childish  faith  in  nature.  Too  much  water  has  gone  un¬ 
der  the  bridge  these  centuries  past  for  us  ever  to  “have 
sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea.”  That  way  lies 
an  arid  artificial  paganism.  Our  lot  is  cast  primarily 
in  a  world  of  men,  and  each  of  us  defines  his  duty 
through  “the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me.”  If  we 
seem  to  love  nature  less  to-day,  it  is  in  some  pro¬ 
founder  sense  that  we  love  man  the  more. 


48 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


This  is  the  stable  logic  of  all  serious  life.  It  was 
not  only  the  course  of  Bible  history,  it  is  still  the  nor¬ 
mal  drift  of  all  deeper  experience.  Despite  all  that  the 
infinitely  extended  boundaries  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
order  of  nature  have  done  to  belittle  man  in  his  own 
eyes,  this  ultimate  humanism  remains  good  science. 
It  is  the  major  impression  and  conclusion  which  sur¬ 
vives  all  the  shifting  conceptions  of  organic  evolution. 
If  the  modern  biologist  finds  it  hard  to  see  God  walking 
in  a  garden  through  the  cooling  vapors  of  a  nebula,  he 
can  still  look  with  a  heightened  appreciation  upon  the 
man  and  the  woman.  If  the  sciences  have  wakened 
the  yelp  of  the  beast  in  us,  have  made  us  feel  the  claws 
of  the  sabre-toothed  tiger  in  our  clenched  fist,  and  even 
have  given  to  these  a  certain  fresh  sanction,  they  have 
not  broken  the  will  to  silence  the  yelp  of  the  beast,  or 
denied  us  the  moral  heights  with  their  glimpse  of  a 
height  that  is  higher.  Sometimes  the  natural  sciences 
seem  to  have  disclosed  the  external  order  as  a  vast 
proscenium,  receding  on  every  hand  into  the  inscruta¬ 
ble  darkness  of  time  and  space  and  to  have  discovered 
man  to  himself  as  an  actor  before  the  guttering  little 
rushlight  of  known  history  playing  an  insane  drama 
without  author  and  without  audience.  But  even  in 
such  extremity  man  has  held  he  was  greater  than  the 
stage-setting  of  the  order  of  nature,  and  that  his  seem¬ 
ingly  trivial  monologue  was  the  cue  to  Reality.  If 
modern  man  must  cast  his  lot  either  with  paganism 
or  humanism,  the  one  to  the  absolute  exclusion 
of  the  other,  he  will  choose  the  latter  as  against  the 
former. 

But  it  would  seem  that  our  “ultra-urban,”  self-suffi¬ 
cient  humanism  might  profitably  steep  itself  once  more 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus,  a  mind  which  was  near  to  nature 
that  it  might  come  still  nearer  to  God  and  man.  Surely 
we  are  not  driven  to  an  absolute  subordination  of  our¬ 
selves  to  the  external  order,  nor  yet  to  a  divorce  of  the 
moods  of  our  thinking  from  their  native  kinship  with 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  49 


that  order.  Surely  we  are  to  seek  to  recapture  our  lost 
sensitiveness  to  the  natural  order,  that  we  may  use  its 
symbols  as  clues  to  the  ways  of  God  with  man  and  of 
man  with  man,  and  that  humbly  we  may  see  in  con¬ 
scious  human  life  the  purposed  product  of  some  divine 
discipline.  We  shall  be  most  deeply  true  to  the  long 
tradition  of  history  in  which  we  stand,  to  our  own  deep¬ 
est  intuitions  and  convictions,  to  the  soberest  conclu¬ 
sions  of  our  sciences,  and  to  the  genius  of  our  religion, 
if  we  think  of  the  order  of  inanimate  nature  as  a  scene 
fitly  planned  for  the  drama  of  mind  and  heart  and 
will,  human  and  beyond-human,  and  of  the  order  of 
animate  nature  as  a  patient  physical  discipline 
yielding  in  due  time  its  fruitage  of  conscious  moral 
persons. 

We  shall  think  of  nature  most  accurately  and  most 
significantly  when  our  minds  move  with  Wordsworth. 
For  there  is  no  finer  perspective  in  this  whole  matter 
than  that  Eighth  Book  of  “The  Prelude” — “Love  of 
Nature  Leading  to  Love  of  Man.”  As  we  follow  Words¬ 
worth  out  over  those  “moors,  mountains,  headlands” 
that  he  knew  so  well  and  loved  with  such  tender  in¬ 
sight,  with  him  we  shall  catch  final  sight  of  the  solitary 
Cumberland  shepherd,  crowning  the  scene. 

A  rambling  schoolboy,  thus, 

I  felt  his  presence  in  his  own  domain. 

As  of  a  lord  and  master,  or  a  power, 

Or  genius,  under  Nature,  under  God, 

Presiding;  and  severest  solitude 

Had  more  commanding  looks  when  he  was  there. 

...  As  he  stepped 
Beyond  the  boundary  line  of  some  hill-shadow. 

His  form  hath  flashed  upon  me,  glorified 
By  the  deep  radiance  of  the  setting  sun: 

Or  him  have  I  descried  in  distant  sky, 

A  solitary  object  and  sublime, 

Above  all  height!  like  an  aerial  cross 
Stationed  alone  upon  a  spiry  rock 
Of  the  Chartreuse,  for  worship.  Thus  was  man 
Ennobled  outwardly  before  my  sight. 


50 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


Recall, 

My  Song !  those  high  emotions  which  thy  voice 
Has  heretofore  made  known;  that  bursting  forth 
Of  sympathy,  inspiring  and  inspired, 

When  everywhere  a  vital  pulse  was  felt. 

And  all  the  several  frames  of  things,  like  stars. 

Through  every  magnitude  distinguishable, 

Shone  mutually  indebted,  or  half  lost 

Each  in  the  other’s  blaze,  a  galaxy 

Of  life  and  glory.  In  the  midst  stood  Man, 

Outwardly,  inwardly  contemplated. 

As  of  all  visible  natures,  crown,  though  born 
Of  dust,  and  kindred  to  the  worm;  a  Being, 

Both  in  perception  and  discernment,  first 
In  every  capability  of  rapture, 

Through  the  divine  effect  of  power  and  love ; 

As  more  than  anything  we  know,  instinct 
With  godhead. 

To  establish  some  such  initial  perspective  is  to  begin 
to  think  rightly  of  nature.  Having  indicated  this  per¬ 
spective,  there  remain  for  mention  a  single  problem 
and  a  single  suggestion. 

The  problem  is  the  moral  problem  as  it  presents  it¬ 
self  in  nature.  It  becomes  at  the  last  the  somber  prob¬ 
lem  of  evil,  to  which  no  satisfactory  speculative  answer 
has  ever  been  given.  All  of  our  efforts  to  justify  the 
ways  of  God  to  man  fail  of  their  ambition,  and  the 
world’s  great  religions  have  taught,  rather,  the  lesson 
of  reconciliation  to  God.  In  this  respect  the  Christian 
ministry  of  reconciliation  stoops  to  conquer  and  stands 
supreme. 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  statement  of 
the  problem  of  evil  in  the  terms  of  the  natural  order 
is  essentially  a  modern  aspect  of  this  ancient  inquiry, 
and  that  sensitiveness  to  this  aspect  of  the  problem  is 
a  characteristic  distinctive  of  our  own  time,  a  witness 
not  to  the  increase  of  wanton  cruelty  in  nature,  but  to 
the  growth  of  conscience  in  man,  the  observer.  The 
jungle  is  neither  more  nor  less  cruel  than  it  ever  was, 
but  man  looks  upon  its  tragedies  with  a  tenderer  heart. 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  51 


A  scrupulous  and  courageous  mind  will  rule  out  of 
the  problem  as  it  is  stated  in  these  terms  so  much  of 
evil  as  man  brings  upon  himself  by  his  ignorance  of  the 
laws  of  nature  or  his  wilful  disobedience  of  those  laws. 
We  shall  feel  no  oppressive  problem  if  we  admit  that 
in  our  bodily  health,  our  mental  integrity,  and  the  for¬ 
tunes  of  our  civilization,  as  Huxley  has  it,  “the  ledgers 
of  the  Almighty  are  strictly  kept  and  every  one  of  us 
has  the  balance  of  his  operations  paid  over  to  him  at 
the  end  of  every  minute  of  his  existence.”  There  is  no 
ultimate  case  against  God  or  His  world  in  nine  tenths 
of  the  misery  which  man,  in  ignorance  and  sin,  brings 
upon  himself. 

Nor  are  we  justified  in  imputing  moral  and  immoral 
motives  to  the  agents  of  inanimate  nature  or  to  the 
sub-human  creatures.  We  cannot  say  that  a  bolt  of 
lightning,  of  itself,  is  either  moral  or  immoral.  We 
cannot  call  the  flash  of  a  cobra’s  fangs  into  its  victim 
good  or  bad.  In  all  such  language  we  are  imputing  to 
the  forces  of  nature  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  an  inde¬ 
pendent  ability  to  say  “ought”  and  “ought  not,”  which 
obviously  they  do  not  possess.  We  shall  be  rigid  with 
ourselves  in  insisting  that  these  agents  in  both  orders 
of  nature,  animate  and  inanimate,  are  simply  non- 
moral.  The  problem  presses  farther  back  to  the  Will 
that  lies  behind  them  and  the  divine,  far-off  event 
which  they  contemplate. 

But  it  is  true,  when  we  have  cleared  this  aspect  of  the 
problem  of  evil  of  all  those  diseases,  miseries,  and  catas¬ 
trophes  which  man  brings  upon  himself  in  intimate  ex¬ 
perience  and  in  wide  history,  and  when  we  have  shriven 
non-moral  agents  in  nature  of  the  burden  of  immediate 
responsibility  for  good  and  evil,  that  there  remains  a 
stern  problematical  residuum  of  suffering  and  cruelty 
in  our  world,  which  cries  out  bitterly  for  interpretation. 
No  religion  can  hope  to  command  the  attention  and 
respect  of  the  modern  mind  which  ignores  this  fact. 

In  so  far  as  the  world  we  see  has  bred  men  who  can 


52 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


know,  and  love,  and  choose  between  good  and  evil,  that 
would  seem  to  be  the  purpose  of  the  natural  order. 
And  unless  such  men  are  to  be  mechanical  puppets, 
achieved  as  a  fait  accompli,  place  must  be  made  for 
an  evolution,  and  evolution  involves  death.  Our  prob¬ 
lem  is  ultimately  the  problem  of  the  ways  and  means 
for  dying  in  the  natural  world,  the  “red  ravin  of  tooth 
and  claw”  which  gives  its  cutting  edge  to  the  fact  of 
evil  in  nature.  As  man  knows  death,  most  of  its  misery 
comes  as  mental  anticipation,  not  as  immediate  phys¬ 
ical  pain.  “The  tempest  in  my  mind  doth  make  all 
else  seem  calm.”  From  this  aspect  of  the  problem  we 
must  suppose  the  lesser  creatures  are  delivered.  There 
may  be  momentary  panic  and  pain,  but  given  the 
necessity  for  death,  it  is  incumbent  upon  critics  of  an 
immoral  and  cruel  nature  to  devise  a  scheme  whereby 
better  place  may  be  made  for  the  evolving  succes¬ 
sion  of  the  generations  and  orders  of  the  animate  world. 
That  there  is  a  moral  problem  here  we  cannot  deny, 
but  we  shall  be  untrue  to  fact  if  we  add  to  the  suffering 
of  animals  the  deeper  poignancy  which  comes  from 
man’s  memory  and  anticipation.  He  who  laughs  with 
bitter  cynicism  at  the  sober  proposition  that  “all  is  for 
the  best  in  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds”  is  challenged 
at  once  to  conceive  a  world  in  which  conscious  moral 
character  could  be  better  planned  and  realized,  through 
a  long  evolutionary  process. 

Moreover,  the  most  significant  achievements  of  man 
remain,  in  some  measure,  as  the  fruits  of  victory  over 
hostile  nature.  It  is  the  struggle  that  keeps  the  soul 
alive,  and  in  so  far  as  man’s  struggle  is  a  struggle  with 
his  total  environment,  the  sense  of  an  opposition  in 
nature  has  kindled  the  conquering  spirit  in  him.  The 
analyst  of  “Civilization  in  the  United  States”  can  say, 
“Providence  has  a  wild,  rough,  incalculable  road  to  its 
end,  and  it  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  whitewash  its  huge 
mixed  instrumentalities,”  but  he  can  immediately  add, 
“Success  in  mastering  nature  has  overcome  the  feeling 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  53 


of  helplessness  in  the  presence  of  misfortune.  It  breeds 
optimists  of  intelligence.  To  a  cataclysm  such  as  the 
San  Francisco  earthquake,  it  replies  with  organized 
relief  and  reconstruction  in  reinforced  concrete.  If 
pestilence  appears,  it  seeks  the  germ,  an  antitoxin,  and 
sanitary  measures.  There  are  no  longer  altars  built  to 
the  Beautiful  Necessity.” 

Not  only  so,  but  the  most  precious  triumphs  of  the 
human  soul  have  in  some  profound  sense  incorporated 
and  transmuted  the  stubborn  opposition  of  the  natural 
world  into  a  greater  good.  The  genius  of  the  deeper 
spiritual  life  of  man  lies  not  merely  in  his  ability  to 
oppose  nature  and  to  master  nature ;  it  lies  in  what  the 
poet  calls  “the  power  an  agonizing  sorrow  to  trans¬ 
mute.”  For  he  can  say  of  himself, 

How  strange,  that  all 
The  terrors,  pains  and  early  miseries. 

Regrets,  vexations,  lassitudes  interfused 
Within  my  mind,  should  e’er  have  borne  a  part. 

And  that  a  needful  part,  in  making  up 
The  calm  existence  that  is  mine  when  I 
Am  worthy  of  myself. 

Those  words  are  in  some  wider  and  profounder  sense 
true,  not  only  of  the  individual,  but  of  the  life  of  man 
in  nature.  The  serenity  of  the  human  soul  at  its 
noblest  to-day  is  not  unconscious  of  its  total  moral 
problem,  nor  the  residuum  of  moral  mystery  in  nature. 
But  even  this  mystery  has  been  transmuted  and 
touched  with  a  certain  healing  spirit,  which  redeems 
the  life  of  man  on  the  earth  from  being  what  otherwise 
it  must  be,  a  thing  of  bleak  tragedy  and  makes  of  it 
a  thing  tender  with  redemption  and  nobler  for  the  dark 
mysteries  of  nature  which  it  transmutes  into  its  own 
spiritual  good  and  then  dares  to  interpret  as  the  inten¬ 
tion  of  the  Eternal  Goodness. 

One  adequate  support 
For  the  calamities  of  mortal  life 
Exists — one  only;  an  assured  belief 


54 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


That  the  procession  of  our  fate,  howe’er 
Sad  or  disturbed,  is  ordered  by  a  Being 
Of  infinite  benevolence  and  power; 

Whose  everlasting  purposes  embrace 
All  accidents,  converting  them  to  good. 

There  remains  a  single  final  suggestion.  Our  re¬ 
ligious  “problem”  in  the  presence  of  nature  has  its 
origins  in  the  fact  that  our  thinking  is  far  more  char¬ 
acteristically  Hebrew  than  Greek;  that  is,  we  instinc¬ 
tively  subordinate  emotion  to  ethics. 

In  so  far  as  religion  is  more  than  morality,  nature 
has  other  aspects  than  the  moral  aspect,  and  we  have 
approaches  to  nature  other  than  the  difficult  moral  ap¬ 
proach. 

Without  sacrificing  any  of  our  hard-won  ethical  in¬ 
sights  and  convictions,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  our  time 
stands  in  great  need  of  a  religious  experience  in  which 
the  moral  struggle  is  for  the  moment  fulfilled  in  the 
known  enjoyment  of  prophetic  moral  victory  and  of 
union  with  God.  For  what  is  religion?  It  is  not  the 
moral  struggle  alone.  Its  genius  is  not  so  truly  incar¬ 
nated  in  the  symbol  of  the  soldier  and  the  pilgrim  as 
in  the  symbol  of  the  lover.  And  its  glory  is  not  so 
much  the  glory  of  going  on  as  the  peace  of  God  im¬ 
mediately  experienced  in  “rest  most  busy.” 

Our  characteristic  “religious  experiences,”  whether 
we  recognize  them  as  such  or  not,  are  the  experiences  in 
which  we  feel  deeply  our  communion  and  union  with 
God  and  man  and  our  whole  world.  To  feel  deeply  and 
to  know  this  oneness  wherever  and  however  it  may  be 
intimated  in  the  homely  circumstances  of  daily  fife, 
and  then  to  have  the  faith  to  say  “God,”  that  is  to 
have  “experienced  religion.”  Whatsoever  is  less  than 
this  or  other  than  this  is  ethics  or  theology,  but  not 
religion  in  its  simple  and  satisfying  reality. 

We  live  in  an  age  when  this  sense  of  the  oneness  of 
things  has  been  all  but  lost.  It  is  our  own  fault,  our 
most  grievous  fault,  that  we  have  forgotten  how  to 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  NATURE?  55 


lift  up  our  eyes  to  the  hills,  and  have  burdened  our 
time  with  the  bitter  heritage  of  all  man’s  inhumanity 
to  man. 

There  is  no  simpler  or  straighter  pathway  to  religion 
through  the  troubled  circumstance  of  the  present  age 
than  that  which  opens  to  us  as  we  turn  to  nature,  not 
with  our  moral  questionings,  but  with  our  hurt  hearts 
asking  for  healing.  We  need  to  be  reassured  that  man 
still  belongs  to  God,  and  that  under  God  man  and  man 
belong  to  one  another.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  recover 
this  forfeited  peace.  And  if  religion  is  to  come  into 
its  own  again  we  must  use  a  language  that  is  simple 
and  universal.  The  language  of  nature  remains  to  us 
as  such  a  medium  of  healing,  of  interpretation,  and  of 
reconciliation. 

It  needs  not  that  we  should  journey  to  Grand  Ca¬ 
nons  or  Sahara  Deserts  or  High  Alps  to  learn  this 
language.  He  who  does  not  speak  it  where  he  lives 
cannot  be  taught  it  in  the  show  places  of  nature.  It 
needs  rather  that  we  should  look  out  upon  so  much  of 
nature  as  the  day  reveals,  it  may  be  only  the  sunset 
beyond  our  smoky  cities  or  the  bit  of  garden  at  our 
doors,  and  that  we  should  speak  colloquially  with  na¬ 
ture  as  Thoreau  spoke  in  Concord.  For  this  colloquial 
conversation  with  the  homely  aspects  of  the  natural 
scene  is  the  universal  language  that  man  always  speaks 
when  he  is  intimately  at  one  with  his  world.  No 
rhetoric,  no  eloquence  are  needed,  only  a  fresh  sense  of 
the  friendly  and  familiar  scenes  of  daily  life,  which, 
far  more  truly  than  all  theologies,  chant  a  faith  held 
“always,  everywhere,  by  all  men.” 

A  French  poilu  during  the  riven  years  just  gone 
said  that  despite  the  hatred  to  the  death  which  divided 
him  from  his  enemy  he  could  never  escape  the  feeling 
that  that  which  united  them  was  more  than  that  which 
divided  them.  For  they  both  looked  out  upon  the 
same  poppies  blowing  in  No  Man’s  Land,  they  were 
both  warmed  by  the  same  sun,  drenched  by  the  same 


56 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


rains,  chilled  by  the  same  snows,  obscured  by  a  common 
night,  and  renewed  by  a  common  dawn.  He  had  laid 
hold  upon  the  true  part  which  nature  seems  primarily 
intended  to  play  in  the  spiritual  life.  This  is  beyond- 
morality,  as  Jesus  knew.  The  inconclusive  and  tenta¬ 
tive  terms  of  the  moral  struggle  are  superseded  by  a 
sure  sense  of  the  oneness  of  all  things,  behind  and 
beyond,  and  ever  present. 

We  shall  be  but  imperfect  disciples  of  Jesus  if  we 
confine  our  thought  of  nature  to  scientific  measure¬ 
ment  and  moralizing,  and  ignore  those  other  moods  in 
which  nature  speaks  to  us  of  a  Father  who  maketh  His 
sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth 
rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust. 

It  is  to  intimate  this  truth  that  nature  is  spread  be¬ 
fore  our  dimmed  eyes  to-day.  And  if  we  cannot  see, 
nature  can  only  say, 

’Tis  ye,  ?tis  your  estranged  faces 
That  miss  the  many  splendored  thing. 

To  learn  to  speak  this  language  of  intimate  com¬ 
munion  once  more,  to  accept  gladly  our  part  and  place 
in  nature,  to  let  it  speak  its  own  healing  through 
homely  and  familiar  scenes  to  the  heart  of  a  time  that 
has  sacrificed  to  its  temporal  hostilities  its  deeper 
capacities  for  religious  experience,  something  of  all  this 
should  return  into  our  thought  of  nature. 

The  sun  is  fixed. 

And  the  infinite  magnificence  of  heaven 
Fixed,  within  reach  of  every  human  eye; 

The  sleepless  ocean  murmurs  for  all  ears; 

The  vernal  field  infuses  fresh  delight 
Into  all  hearts  .  .  . 

The  smoke  ascends 

To  heaven  as  lightly  from  the  cottage  hearth 
As  from  the  haughtiest  palace.  He  whose  soul 
Ponders  this  true  equality,  may  walk 
The  fields  of  earth  with  gratitude  and  hope. 


CHAPTER  V 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY  AND 

HUMAN  RELATIONS? 

By  B.  Seebohm  Rowntree 

This  is  a  question  on  which  too  many  of  us,  even 
among  those  who  are  regarded  as  thoughtful  persons, 
seldom  or  never  do  any  sound  and  constructive  think¬ 
ing.  We  allow  things  to  happen,  instead  of  formulat¬ 
ing  a  clear  conception  of  what  we  believe  that  society 
and  human  relationships  should  be,  and  then  working 
steadily  and  consistently  to  realize  our  ideals.  Yet 
everything  that  has  ever  been  created  by  man,  whether 
a  cathedral,  a  war,  or  a  social  system,  is  the  outcome 
of  thought;  and  careless,  chaotic  thinking  inevitably 
results  in  careless  and  chaotic  action. 

No  thoughtful  man  is  satisfied  with  the  present  state 
of  society,  yet  we  shrink  from  the  hard  thinking  that 
must  precede  any  radical  improvement.  Indeed,  it  is 
not  unfair  to  say  that  we  shrink  from  it  more  than  we 
shrink  from  sacrifice.  We  would  rather  face  physical 
stress  and  discomfort  than  the  mental  and  spiritual 
stress  that  hard  thinking  involves.  Therefore  we  try 
to  content  ourselves  with  the  superficial  mitigation  of 
social  evils.  We  never  really  try  to  find  and  to  ex¬ 
tirpate  the  root  of  any  one  evil.  But  we  break  off  the 
weeds  at  their  stems — it  is  probably  better  than  doing 
nothing,  but  it  is  not  the  way  of  true  progress. 

Let  us  try  to  visualize  the  kind  of  society  which  we 
would  like  to  see  established.  I  am  not  thinking  of 
some  Utopia  which  is  perhaps  quite  unattainable  on 

57 


58 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


our  present  “plane  of  consciousness,”  but  of  something 
capable  of  actual  realization  within  a  comparatively 
short  period,  something  which  practical  men  and  wo¬ 
men  may  definitely  set  before  themselves  as  a  goal,  to 
be  reached  by  their  children  if  not  by  them. 

The  basis  and  starting-point  of  our  social  organiza¬ 
tion  is  the  family,  and  from  every  standpoint  it  is  es¬ 
sential  that  the  home  where  the  family  lives  shall  be 
such  as  will  be  conducive  to  a  healthy  and  worthy  life. 
The  right  solution  of  the  housing  problem  is  there¬ 
fore  a  matter  of  vital  importance.  To-day,  in  England, 
it  is  very  roughly  estimated  that  five  per  cent  of  our 
working-class  people  live  in  slums;  and  probably  this 
is  true  of  all  of  the  older  countries,  since  “nothing  is 
so  international  as  the  slum.”  People  have  got  it  into 
their  heads  that  slums  are  inevitable.  That  is  a  com¬ 
plete  mistake.  Slums  will  disappear  as  soon  as  we 
really  make  up  our  minds  that  we  will  tolerate  them 
no  longer.  Had  the  war  not  intervened,  legislation 
would  probably  have  been  in  active  operation  to-day 
which  in  a  few  years  would  have  made  slums  com¬ 
paratively  rare  in  England.1  But  it  is  not  enough 
to  get  rid  of  slums.  We  must  also  get  rid  of  the  long, 
monotonous  rows  of  “cages  for  factory  hands” — the 
dreary  waste  of  featureless  unlovely  dwellings  which 
the  great  majority  of  unskilled  workers  in  our  towns 
now  inhabit.  Such  sordid  surroundings  cannot  fail 
to  exercise  a  deadening  influence  on  the  mentalities  of 
those  who  live  among  them.  The  love  of  beauty  is 
instinctive  in  human  beings:  so  is  the  love  of  ample 
breathing-space  for  soul  and  body.  In  those  mean 
streets,  the  faculties  of  admiration  and  of  wonder, 
which  are  of  such  vital  importance,  are  flung  back  upon 
themselves,  stifled,  or  turned  into  unhealthy  chan- 

1The  methods  by  which  slums  were  to  be  abolished  are  set  out 
in  the  Report  of  the  Land  Enquiry  Committee  (Vol.  II),  Urban, 
published  by  Hodder  &  Stoughton,  London,  1914,  and  in  the 
Speeches  of  The  Rt.  Hon.  D.  Lloyd  George  in  1913-1914,  dealing 
with  the  Land  Question. 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  59 


nels.  Only  people  who  are  supernormal,  or  subnormal, 
can  fail  to  suffer  impoverishment,  physical,  mental, 
and  moral,  in  a  cramped,  dingy,  ugly  environment. 

As  we  consider  housing  conditions,  we  are  forced  to 
recognize  that  the  housing  problem  is  primarily  a 
poverty  problem,  and  to  consider  our  economic  sys¬ 
tem  and  the  distribution  of  wealth.  It  is  not  generally 
realized  that  even  countries  like  the  United  States  and 
England  are  comparatively  poor.  If  the  total  income 
of  either  country  were  equally  divided  among  its  in¬ 
habitants,  the  general  scale  of  living  thus  made  pos¬ 
sible  would  still  be  considerably  lower  than  is  socially 
desirable.  Of  course,  this  is  not  to  argue  against  the 
advisability  of  a  more  even  distribution  of  wealth; 
rather,  it  points  to  the  inference  that  we  cannot  afford, 
from  the  standpont  of  the  general  well-being,  to  dis¬ 
tribute  our  wealth  so  unevenly,  while  its  amount  is  so 
limited. 

But  perhaps,  before  proceeding,  I  should  pause  to 
ask  whether  we  should  not  be  better  and  happier  if  we 
were  content  with  a  much  simpler  standard  of  living 
than  is  adopted  to-day  even  by  those  who  are  generally 
regarded  as  living  very  simply.  Are  we  right  in  de¬ 
manding  a  standard  of  creature-comfort  so  enormously 
higher  than  our  great-grandparents  enjoyed?  Or  is 
the  constant  striving  after  a  higher  general  standard  of 
life  a  mistake?  Should  we  be  well  advised  to  eschew 
these  modern  refinements,  such  as  telephones  and  tele¬ 
graphs,  and  bicycles  and  motor  cars,  and  daily  news¬ 
papers,  and  bathrooms,  and  electric  light,  and  express 
trains  and  a  highly  developed  postal  system,  and  food 
brought  from  all  the  ends  of  the  earth — tea,  and  coffee, 
and  rice,  and  currants,  and  raisins,  and  oranges,  and  all 
kinds  of  things  which  now  enter  into  the  diet  of  every 
cottager,  but  which  were  regarded  as  rare  luxuries  a 
comparatively  few  years  ago? 

Obviously  it  is  important  that  we  should  not  demand 
a  standard  of  life  which  can  only  be  provided  at  the 


60 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


cost  of  excessive  toil,  either  on  our  own  part  or  that 
of  others,  and  we  should  avoid  enervating  luxury;  but 
I  do  not  think  any  case  can  be  made  out  against  sur¬ 
rounding  ourselves  with  the  amenities  of  Western 
civilization.  The  average  Western  man  is  not  a  con¬ 
templative  person  like  the  men  of  the  East.  His  nature 
calls  for  an  active  life.  If  he  were  shut  off  from  rapid 
travel,  and  rapid  and  general  dissemination  of  news,  and 
from  his  accustomed  interest  and  excitement  of  trade 
and  commerce,  he  would  not  turn  to  spiritual  contem¬ 
plation  but  would  stagnate.  The  Western  nature  will 
develop  its  finest  qualities  amid  an  environment  of 
rightly  directed  action.  There  are  few  Thoreaus 
amongst  us.  It  may  be  urged  that  even  the  present 
comparatively  low  standard  of  comfort  is  only  secured 
at  the  cost  of  hard  toil.  This  may  be  readily  admitted, 
but  why  is  it?  Is  it  not  because  of  the  waste  of  energy 
which  is  going  on?  Look  at  the  industrial  warfare — 
the  tens  of  millions  of  days  of  work  lost  every  year  in 
the  United  States  and  England  through  strikes  and 
lock-outs!  And  think  of  the  hidden  waste  which  is 
even  more  disastrous!  The  ca’  canny,  the  waste  due 
to  lack  of  cordial  cooperation  between  all  the  human 
factors  engaged  in  industry. 

If  this  waste  and  the  waste  due  to  inefficient  indus¬ 
trial  methods  were  avoided,  a  much  higher  general 
standard  of  material  comfort  would  be  possible  with¬ 
out  undue  labor.  It  is  in  these  directions  that  we 
should  seek  for  change  rather  than  in  the  lowering  of 
the  standard  of  comfort. 

But  although  we  may  conclude  that  the  desire  for 
a  standard  of  material  comfort  higher  than  is  generally 
possible  to-day  is  to  be  encouraged,  this  is  not  to  say 
that  the  present  means  of  seeking  to  satisfy  that  desire 
are  satisfactory.  Few  would  claim  that  they  are  sat¬ 
isfied  with  the  conditions  of  modern  industry.  Its 
shortcomings  are  so  well  known  that  I  need  not  dwell 
upon  them.  Radical  changes  are  called  for. 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  61 


I  think  the  ideals  we  should  set  before  us  in  industry 
may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows: 

1.  Industry  should  create  goods,  or  provide  services 
of  such  kinds,  and  in  such  measure,  as  may  be 
beneficial  to  the  community. 

2.  In  the  process  of  wealth  production,  industry 
should  pay  the  greatest  possible  regard  to  the 
general  welfare  of  the  community,  and  pursue  no 
policy  detrimental  to  it. 

3.  Industries  should  distribute  the  wealth  produced 
in  such  a  manner  as  will  best  serve  the  highest 
ends  of  the  community. 

I  believe  that  no  system  of  industry  can  be  defended 
which  fails  to  satisfy  these  three  conditions — and  it 
is  for  the  defenders  of  any  system  to  prove  that  it  is 
capable  of  doing  so.  Obviously,  the  first  thought  that 
arises  in  our  minds  is,  Can  our  present  system  of  in¬ 
dustry  meet  the  tests?  As  I  shall  try  to  show  later, 
the  spirit  actuating  those  who  are  working  any  given 
system  is  of  more  importance  than  the  system  itself. 
The  present  system,  as  it  is  commonly  applied,  cer¬ 
tainly  fails  to  meet  the  tests,  but  personally  I  believe 
that  it  will  be  possible  to  meet  them  without  making 
any  revolutionary  changes  in  the  structure  of  the  in¬ 
dustrial  system.  There  will,  however,  have  to  be  pro¬ 
found  changes  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  worked,  as 
well  as  certain  safeguards,  and  it  is  possible  that  grad¬ 
ually  these  may  lead  to  structural  changes  in  the  sys¬ 
tem  itself,  but  these  will  be  evolutionary,  and  I  do  not 
think  we  can  forecast  their  nature  at  present. 

I  suggest  that  the  next  steps  to  be  taken  to  improve 
industrial  conditions  are  the  following: 

1.  The  payment  of  minimum  wages  to  workers  of 
normal  ability  which,  in  the  case  of  a  man,  will 
enable  him  to  marry,  to  live  in  a  decent  house, 


62  RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 

and  to  maintain  a  family  of  normal  size  in  a 
state  of  physical  efficiency,  with  a  reasonable  mar¬ 
gin  for  contingencies  and  recreation;  and,  in  the 
case  of  a  woman,  will  enable  her  to  live  com¬ 
fortably,  in  respectable  surroundings,  providing 
for  herself  alone.  The  achievement  of  this  aim  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment  should  be  placed 
in  the  forefront  of  the  policy  of  every  industrial 
enterprise. 

2.  The  hours  of  work  should  be  such  as  to  leave  the 
worker  sufficient  leisure.  Experience  seems  to 
point  to  forty-eight  hours  as  the  length  of  work¬ 
ing  week  suitable  in  most  industries,  and  any 
deviation  from  this  figure,  either  up  or  down, 
should  be  justified  by  the  special  circumstances 
of  the  case. 

3.  The  workers  should  be  given  reasonable  economic 
security  during  the  whole  working  life  and  in  old 
age.  This  involves  unemployment  insurance  on 
a  scale  which  will  remove  the  fear  of  the  actual 
suffering  and  privation  which  are  due  to  in¬ 
voluntary  unemployment,  insurance  against  in¬ 
validity  and  long-continued  illness,  and  an  ade¬ 
quate  old-age  pension.  The  cost  of  providing 
these  is  within  the  reach  of  industry. 

4.  The  status  of  the  workers  should  be  much  more 
that  of  cooperators  in  industry  than  servants. 
This  will  not  involve  anarchy  or  any  loss  of  in¬ 
dustrial  efficiency. 

5.  The  workers  should  have  a  direct  financial  interest 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  industry  in  which  they 
are  engaged. 

I  do  not  say  that  the  attainment  of  the  above  con¬ 
ditions  would  mean  the  complete  realization  of  the 
three  ideals  which  I  outlined  for  industry.  But  it  would 
constitute  a  very  great  advance  in  that  direction,  and 
it  is  an  advance  which  we  can  begin  to  make  at  once, 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  63 


and  is  already  being  made  in  many  factories  with 
strikingly  satisfactory  results. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  international  aspect  of  what 
is  really  the  same  problem,  that  of  establishing  rela¬ 
tions  of  whole-hearted  cooperation  among  human  be¬ 
ings.  Unless  we  can  adopt  some  intelligent  way  of 
dealing  with,  and  settling,  the  various  disputes  which 
arise  between  states  and  nations,  not  only  will  the 
progress  of  civilization  be  checked,  but  there  is  a  posi¬ 
tive  danger  that  the  countries,  to  use  Lord  Rosebery’s 
phrase,  may  “rattle  back  to  barbarism.”  This  is  no 
empty  fear.  We  of  this  generation,  creatures  of  a  day, 
may  stand  awestruck  before  the  evidences  of  the  power 
of  civilization  and  its  wonderful  activities.  Our  world¬ 
wide  trade,  our  laws,  our  cities,  our  art  galleries,  our 
museums,  our  schools  and  universities,  and  all  our  vast 
accomplishments  in  science  and  in  literature:  these 
surely  represent  abiding  might!  But  so  may  the  citi¬ 
zens  of  Greece,  of  Persia,  and  of  ancient  Egypt  have 
argued  in  their  day.  Progress  in  civilization  is  not  a 
thing  to  be  assumed :  indeed,  the  record  of  history  sug¬ 
gests  a  very  different  assumption.  The  human  forces 
that  create  civilization  can  even  more  speedily  destroy 
it,  if  they  are  divided  against  themselves.  If  the 
chances  of  rapid  advance  are  greater  than  ever  they 
were  before,  so  are  the  chances  of  a  terribly  swift  retro¬ 
gression.  As  I  write,  forty-seven  States  in  Genoa 
are  seeking,  like  Frankenstein,  to  restrain  the  destruc¬ 
tive  power  of  the  monster  they  have  created. 

The  Great  War  was  not  an  inexplicable  phenom¬ 
enon:  it  was  the  logical  result  of  events  prior  to  1914, 
and  it  was  a  world  war  because  the  whole  civilized 
world  is  now  bound  up  in  “one  bundle  of  life.”  Rail¬ 
way  and  steamship  lines,  and  international  cables,  and 
an  ever-increasing  volume  of  international  trade,  like 
the  veins  and  arteries  of  some  vast  organism,  have  sent 
the  life-blood  of  humanity  pulsing  from  one  end  of 
the  earth  to  the  other.  Isolation  has  become  impos- 


64 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


sible,  and  if  one  member  is  diseased  or  maimed,  the 
whole  body  suffers.  If  only  for  this  reason,  it  is  es¬ 
sential  to  create  some  international  organization  for 
the  achievement  of  mutually  desirable  purposes  and 
for  the  avoidance  of  friction.  We  need  not  here  ask 
whether  the  League  of  Nations  as  at  present  consti¬ 
tuted  can  adequately  fulfil  this  function,  but  if  it  can¬ 
not,  some  other  organ  must  be  devised,  having  a  similar 
objective. 

We  have  learned  that  to-day  war  directly  involves 
not  merely  armies,  but  whole  nations.  And,  just  as 
the  perils  of  war  grow  more  appalling,  so  will  the  prep¬ 
aration  for  war,  always  spoken  of  in  terms  of  self- 
defense,  grow  more  costly,  not  only  absolutely,  but 
in  its  relation  to  national  incomes. 

I  am,  in  this  chapter,  purposely  confining  my  dis¬ 
cussion  to  fundamental  considerations  affecting  society 
and  human  relations,  and  shall  not  dwell  on  such  ques¬ 
tions  as  intemperance,  gambling,  or  vice,  not  because 
they  are  unimportant,  but  because  they  fall  into  a  dif¬ 
ferent  category  from  the  subjects  discussed.  There 
are,  however,  two  other  subjects  which  claim  our  con¬ 
sideration.  The  first  is  education.  That  is  funda¬ 
mental.  No  social  system  can  be  defended  which  re¬ 
fuses  adequate  opportunities  of  mental  development 
to  any  considerable  section  of  the  people. 

Progress  of  a  sort  is  possible  in  an  autocratically  gov¬ 
erned  state,  even  though  education  is  largely  confined 
to  the  governing  class.  But  in  the  Western  World  we 
are  dealing  with  democracies,  and  to  give  people  the 
right  of  self-government  while  withholding  from  them 
the  opportunity  of  a  sound  education  is  as  dangerous 
as  to  allow  children  to  play  with  high  explosives.  It  is 
a  fundamental  condition  of  good  government  in  a 
democratic  state  that  a  high  average  standard  of  edu¬ 
cation  shall  be  secured,  and  that  all  children  of  parts 
shall  be  given  full  opportunity  to  develop  their  mental 
powers.  The  imperative  need  to  fulfil  these  conditions 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  65 


is  more  fully  recognized  in  America  than  in  England, 
but  in  neither  country  is  it  as  yet  adequately  appre¬ 
ciated.  An  adequate  system  of  education  is  necessarily 
costly,  and  we  probably  cannot  afford  it  while  so  heavy 
a  drain  on  the  national  resources  is  made  by  wars  and 
military  preparations.  We  must  choose  between  the 
two. 

The  other  subject  to  which  I  must  refer  as  funda¬ 
mental  to  any  satisfactory  scheme  of  society  is  that 
the  form  of  government  must  be  such  as  will  give 
proper  liberty  to  all  members  of  the  community  and 
afford  them  adequate  means  of  self-expression.  The 
laws  should  accurately  reflect  the  desires  and  aspira¬ 
tions  of  the  people,  not  those  of  a  favored  class.  In 
this  connection,  history  reminds  us  that  “the  price  of 
liberty  is  eternal  vigilance.”  It  is  not  enough  to  create 
a  liberty-giving  constitution;  it  is  necessary  constantly 
to  watch  that  individuals  or  groups  of  individuals  are 
not  usurping  powers  which  should  remain  with  the 
people. 

I  have  very  briefly  outlined  some  of  the  chief  char¬ 
acteristics  of  a  state  of  society  which,  though  not  per¬ 
fect,  would  be  infinitely  superior  to  society  as  we  know 
it  to-day,  and  I  have  suggested  some  of  the  steps  by 
which  we  may  advance.  I  have  pictured  nothing  im¬ 
possible,  nothing  fantastic:  indeed,  the  criticism  may 
with  some  justice  be  urged  that  the  ideal  put  forward 
is  too  modest.  But  I  believe  that  it  is  one  which 
the  vast  majority  of  the  people  who  think  about  the 
future  at  all  would  advocate.  It  is  merely  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  dictates  of  common  sense  that  people 
should  live  in  healthy,  comfortable  houses,  that  the 
common  good  should  take  precedence  of  private  gain 
as  a  motive  force  in  industry,  that  measures  should  be 
adopted  for  removing  the  principal  causes  of  industrial 
unrest,  and  securing  the  cordial  cooperation  of  all  con¬ 
cerned  in  the  production  of  wealth,  that  we  should 
learn  to  settle  international  disputes  by  other  methods 


66 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


than  those  of  the  jackal  and  hyena,  that  educational 
advantages,  and  ample  opportunities  of  self-expression, 
should  be  within  the  reach  of  every-one,  and,  finally, 
that  governments  should  be  democratic  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  name. 

Why,  then,  cannot  we  bring  about  the  changes  which 
are  generally  acknowledged  to  be  desirable?  The  rea¬ 
son  of  our  failure  lies  deep  in  our  own  souls.  Take  any 
of  the  social  evils  from  which  humanity  suffers,  trace 
it  to  its  underlying  cause,  and  you  will  find  some  spirit¬ 
ual  failing — pride,  vanity,  love  of  power,  avarice,  sloth, 
or  selfishness — that  word  which  sums  up  all  the  other 
words.  This  is  a  point  that  I  can  hardly  overempha¬ 
size,  since  the  accurate  diagnosis  of  any  disease  is  the 
first  step  towards  its  cure. 

At  present,  social  effort  is  mainly  directed  towards 
the  partial  remedy  of  external  evils,  while  compara¬ 
tively  little  serious  attention  is  being  devoted  by  social 
reformers  and  statesmen  to  the  underlying  cause  of 
social  ills.  Religion  is  too  largely  regarded  as  a  soul¬ 
saving  device  which  functions  in  a  department  of  its 
own,  and  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  “practical 
politics.”  But  thirty  years  of  fairly  close  study  of 
social,  economic,  and  industrial  questions  from  the 
practical  standpoint  have  driven  me  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  no  way  out  of  our  present  difficulties  if 
we  leave  the  spiritual  factor  out  of  account.  The  real 
difficulty  is  not  to  devise  a  desirable  scheme  of  society, 
but  to  persuade  men  to  conform  to  it  when  it  has 
been  devised,  and  this  is  less  a  mental  than  a  moral 
and  spiritual  problem.  What  the  world  needs  to-day 
is  a  great  spiritual  revival,  whose  immediate  object 
is  not  the  saving  of  souls  in  some  future  life,  but  the 
establishment  here  and  now  of  a  standard  of  life  more 
creditable  to  human  hearts  and  heads  than  that  which 
obtains  to-day. 

There  are  two  impulses  which  sway  each  of  us.  One 
is  the  impulse  towards  selfishness  and  materialism.  It 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  67 


is  the  impulse  to  strive  after  ease  and  comfort,  and 
good  living,  and  power  for  ourselves,  and  perhaps 
also  for  members  of  our  own  family  or  our  particular 
set  or  class.  The  other  impulse  is  to  give  practical  ex¬ 
pression  to  the  spiritual  side  of  our  natures.  Now, 
for  most  of  us,  the  former  impulse  is  the  more  insistent, 
and  unless  we  guard  and  nurture  the  spiritual  element 
within  us,  it  is  in  danger  of  being  stifled  by  its  vigorous 
competitor. 

Merely  from  the  standpoint  of  efficient  reform,  any 
social  system  that  is  to  achieve  permanence  must  rest 
upon  a  spiritual  foundation.  No  other  foundation  en¬ 
dures  :  on  no  other  can  we  raise  a  solid  structure.  Ma¬ 
terialism  and  selfishness,  however  judiciously  com¬ 
bined,  can  never  create  anything  worth  creating. 

Now,  suppose  we  admit  that  merely  from  the  prac¬ 
tical  standpoint  of  social  reform  it  is  absolutely  neces¬ 
sary  that  our  scheme  of  society  shall  be  established  on 
a  spiritual  basis,  and  that  men  and  women  generally 
shall  emphasize  spiritual  rather  than  material  values, 
to  what  practical  action  does  this  point? 

I  think  the  first  thing  is  to  make  it  clear  that  what 
we  are  seeking  after  is  not  a  dreamy,  ineffective  other¬ 
worldliness,  but  a  spiritual  dynamic  which  will  make 
this  world  an  infinitely  better  place  to  live  in.  At 
present,  the  kind  of  employer  who  asserts  with  con¬ 
fidence  that  “business  is  business”  and  the  politician 
whose  actions  are  based  on  a  materialistic  philosophy 
look  upon  themselves  as  hard-headed  practical  men, 
and  secretely  despise  the  spiritual  teacher.  This  is 
largely  because  the  religious  teachers  of  to-day  have 
been  too  much  on  the  defensive — too  apologetic.  They 
must  tell  the  “hard-headed”  man  of  the  world,  whether 
he  be  an  employer  or  a  diplomat,  that  really  he  isn’t 
hard-headed  at  all,  but  very  soft-headed;  that  it  is  his 
heart  that  is  hard,  not  his  head.  They  should  ask  him 
whether  he  is  proud  of  society  as  he  sees  it  to-day.  We 
must  make  men  feel  that  just  in  so  far  as  social  and  in- 


68 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


dustrial  and  international  policies  are  based  on  selfish¬ 
ness  and  materialism  they  will  be  failures  and  stupid 
failure.  Look  at  wars  between  educated  and  presum¬ 
ably  civilized  people.  Are  they  not  stupid?  Look  at 
strikes  and  lock-outs.  Are  they  not  stupid?  Ought 
we  not  to  burn  with  shame  when  we  realize  that  we 
have  actually  failed  to  discover  a  better  way  of  settling 
many  of  our  differences  than  that  of  jackals  and  hy¬ 
enas? 

Next,  we  must  see  that  nothing  is  allowed  to  parade 
as  spiritual  religion  which  is  not  genuine.  There  is 
far  too  much  of  the  religion  of  smug  respectability. 
Men  outside  the  churches  look  at  the  lives  of  many 
churchgoers  and  they  say,  “These  men,  who  profess 
much,  are  no  better  than  we,  who  make  no  profession.” 
We  must  purge  our  churches  of  all  hypocrisy.  The 
fruit  of  the  spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering, 
kindness,  goodness,  faithfulness,  meekness,  temperance. 
If  the  tree  does  not  bear  the  fruit,  it  is  the  wrong  kind 
of  tree.  Real  spirituality  is  a  virile  thing,  which  there 
is  no  mistaking.  There  is  nothing  sanctimonious  about 
it,  and  it  is  not  given  to  wearing  a  dreamy,  far-away 
expression.  It  is,  indeed,  singularly  alert!  One  is 
conscious  of  it  in  the  grip  of  the  hand,  in  the  atmo¬ 
sphere  of  the  home,  the  office,  or  the  factory,  as  some¬ 
thing  warm  and  strong  and  vital.  It  may  be  found  in 
a  churchgoer  or  in  a  man  who  never  enters  a  place 
of  worship,  but  wherever  we  find  it,  it  bears  the  hall¬ 
mark  of  a  consecrated  and  unselfish  life. 

Religion  of  that  kind  is  always  efficacious.  But  who 
will  become  its  missionaries?  Who  will  help  forward 
the  spiritual  revival  of  which  the  world  is  so  bitterly 
in  need?  There  is  a  marked  tendency  to-day,  as  there 
always  has  been,  for  rank-and-file  people  to  wait  till 
those  in  authority  take  action.  In  politics  it  is  usually : 
“Why  doesn’t  the  government  do  something?”  and  in 
religious  matters  we  seem  to  be  waiting  for  the 
churches.  But  the  actual  relation  of  each  individual  to 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  69 


God  and  man  is  something  simple  and  immediate, 
something  which  cannot  be  devolved.  There  is  much 
talk  of  devolution  nowadays,  and  a  few  of  us  might 
welcome  the  idea  of  devolving  our  spiritual  responsi¬ 
bilities.  We  cannot  do  it.  We  cannot  hand  them  over 
to  any  accredited  leader.  Moreover,  even  in  matters 
of  social  and  political  reform,  the  leader’s  rate  of  ad¬ 
vance  depends  on  those  who  follow  him.  No  ruler  can 
long  act  far  in  advance  of  public  opinion.  This  is  true, 
to  a  great  extent,  in  the  sphere  of  spiritual  activities. 

We  must  face  our  own  obligations,  and  probably 
we  all  have  greater  opportunities  for  effective  service 
than  we  realize.  A  large  employer  can  do  more  than 
most  preachers  to  deepen  the  spiritual  life  of  the  na¬ 
tion.  Think  what  it  means  in  some  measure  to  set 
the  tone  of  a  factory  in  which  hundreds  or  thousands  of 
people  are  working.  The  tone  of  a  workshop  is  just 
as  important  as  that  of  a  school  or  college.  I  have 
seen  managers  and  foremen  and  individual  workmen 
who,  probably  without  knowing  it,  were  preaching  a 
spiritual  religion,  not  through  their  lips  but  in  their 
lives,  and  I  have  seen  those  about  them  respond,  until 
the  whole  atmosphere  was  altered.  Those  men  are 
pioneers  of  the  spiritual  age,  and  we  are  all  called  to 
be  such  pioneers,  in  our  particular  spheres.  Only  by 
development  on  those  lines  will  spirituality  finally 
conquer  materialism,  love  conquer  selfishness. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  dwell  here  on  the  teaching  by 
which  men  now  spiritually  apathetic  are  to  be  rendered 
spiritually  alive — that  will  doubtless  be  discussed  in 
other  chapters.  My  purpose  is  to  press  home  two 
thoughts:  firstly,  that  social  reformers  who  are  leaving 
spiritual  considerations  out  of  account  in  their  efforts 
to  set  the  world  straight  are  courting  inevitable  dis¬ 
aster;  and,  secondly,  that  at  present  an  entirely  undue 
amount  of  time  and  energy  and  money  is  being  devoted 
to  altering  various  systems  which  form  the  structure 
of  society,  as,  for  instance,  the  system  of  industry,  or 


70 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


the  mode  of  settling  international  disputes,  when 
really  what  is  primarily  needed  is  to  alter  the  ideals 
of  the  men  who  have  the  power  to  change  the  systems. 
After  all,  systems  are  but  machines  for  carrying  out 
the  ideals  of  the  men  who  create  them.  It  is  futile 
to  attempt  to  change  the  system  while  leaving  the 
ideals  unchanged.  The  underlying  motive  power  in 
the  capitalistic  system  of  industry  is  private  gain.  Not 
only  the  capitalist,  but  every  grade  of  worker,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  is  seeking  to  get  as  large  a 
share  as  possible  of  the  product  of  industry.  When  the 
economic  position  favors  the  capitalist,  he  forces  wages 
down.  When  it  favors  the  workers,  they  force  wages 
up.  And  always  each  class  of  workers,  laborers,  skilled 
mechanics,  clerks,  administrative  officers,  are  pushing 
their  own  claims  as  against  those  of  the  other  workers. 
“Now,”  say  certain  reformers,  “these  conditions  are 
highly  unsatisfactory.  Let  us  change  the  system  of 
industry  for  one  based  on  the  assumption  that  every¬ 
one  is  working  unselfishly  for  the  common  good  instead 
of  for  private  gain.  Then  all  will  be  well,”  and  so 
they  devote  their  whole  energies  to  changing  the  sys¬ 
tem  of  industry.  Now  one  does  not  need  to  be  a  de¬ 
fender  of  the  present  system  with  all  its  evils  to  real¬ 
ize  the  futility  of  such  a  course.  These  men  are  cutting 
off  the  head  of  the  noxious  plant,  but  leaving  the  vig¬ 
orous  root  untouched. 

If  a  lasting  reform  is  to  be  effected,  the  ideals  of 
those  responsible  for  the  continuance  of  the  present 
system  must  be  changed,  and  then  they  will  speedily 
devise  a  new  system  adapted  to  their  changed  ideals. 
Indeed,  such  a  process  may  already  be  seen  working  in 
many  factories,  where  employers  and  employed,  actu¬ 
ated  by  unselfish  motives,  are  changing  their  little  part 
of  the  industrial  system  in  which  they  function  so  that 
it  shall  respond  to  their  ideals. 

And  so,  the  answer  which  we  are  compelled  to  give 
to  the  question,  What  shall  we  think  of  society  and 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  SOCIETY?  71 


human  relations?  is  this.  At  present,  society,  based 
very  largely  on  selfishness,  is  so  sick  that  in  Europe 
it  is  in  actual  danger  of  disintegration.  In  Russia,  mil¬ 
lions  are  starving,  and  most  of  the  other  countries  are 
so  poor  that  they  can  hardly  pay  their  way.  In  Amer¬ 
ica,  material  conditions  are  better,  but  here  also  signs 
are  not  wanting  that  the  old  basis  of  society  is  inade¬ 
quate  to  the  needs  of  to-day.  The  fact  is  that  the  sit¬ 
uation  has  changed  profoundly  since  1914.  So  long  as 
the  power  of  government,  whether  in  states  or  in  in¬ 
dustry,  rested  with  a  small  class,  and  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  were  willing  to  be  governed,  without 
asking  too  many  questions  if  conditions  were  not  ren¬ 
dered  quite  intolerable;  and  so  long  as  wars,  when  they 
did  occur,  were  confined  to  comparatively  small  bodies 
of  fighting  men,  a  society  based  on  selfishness  could 
make  some  show  of  success. 

But  to-day,  not  only  has  it  been  clearly  demonstrated 
that  in  future  wars  will  directly  involve  whole  nations, 
instead  of  merely  armies,  but  a  profound  change  has 
come  over  the  psychology  of  the  people.  It  is  a  change 
as  great  as,  or  greater  than,  that  which  swept  over 
Europe  in  1848.  The  war  has  given  to  the  ordinary 
man  a  new  sense  of  his  worth  and  his  power.  In  in¬ 
dustry,  the  workman  is  no  longer  willing  to  be  the 
servant  of  capital.  He  demands  the  status  of  partner 
or,  at  any  rate,  of  cooperator.  He  is  claiming  rights 
scarcely  thought  of  even  a  decade  ago. 

But  in  these  new  circumstances,  the  dry  rot  in  the 
present  system,  largely  based  on  selfishness,  inevitably 
shows  itself.  So  long  as  the  relation  was  one  of  a  self¬ 
ish  master  and  docile  servant,  the  falsity  of  the  po¬ 
sition,  judged  by  ethical  standards,  might  remain 
hidden.  But  so  soon  as  the  spirit  of  servitude  disap¬ 
pears,  and  each  class  urges  its  own  claims  with  great 
and  often  selfish  insistence,  the  position  becomes  quite 
impossible.  That,  put  very  crudely,  but  not,  I  think, 
inaccurately,  is  the  situation  in  industry  to-day.  Ob- 


72 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


viously  it  cannot  continue  indefinitely,  since  industry 
is  essential  to  the  existence  of  society,  and  unless  it 
functions  more  harmoniously,  society  will  bleed  to 
death.  And  what  is  true  of  industry  is  true  of  inter¬ 
national  relations.  Here  friction,  when  it  occurs,  is 
now  on  so  vast  a  scale  that  unless  we  can  relieve  it,  the 
outlook  is  indeed  somber. 

Whether  we  judge  it  from  the  social,  the  industrial, 
or  the  international  standpoint,  selfishness  has  failed 
as  a  motive.  It  has  never  really  urged  humanity  for¬ 
ward,  and  to-day  its  acknowledged  tyranny  threatens 
our  very  existence.  But  what  shall  we  substitute  as 
a  working  power?  A  search  into  the  possible  alterna¬ 
tives,  no  matter  how  profound  or  long-continued,  can 
have  but  one  result.  The  only  dynamic  strong  enough 
both  to  replace  and  dominate  selfishness  is  the  old,  old 
dynamic  of  love — the  greatest,  the  most  accessible,  the 
most  spiritual,  the  most  practical  force  in  the  whole 
universe ! 


CHAPTER  VI 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  KINGDOM 

OF  GOD? 

By  A.  Clutton-Brock 

Before  answering  this  question,  we  must  ask  what 
Christ  meant  by  the  Kingdom  of  God;  and  to  that 
there  are  at  least  two  rival  answers  which  I  must  state 
before  declaring  for  one  of  them. 

According  to  one  answer,  He  meant  something  we 
cannot  mean,  something  provincial  and  of  the  past  in 
which  we  do  not  now  believe.  Like  many  Jews  of  His 
time,  He  expected  an  external  change  or  catastrophe 
that  was  to  come  suddenly,  like  an  earthquake,  and  to 
come  soon.  It  was  to  end  all  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world,  especially  the  Roman  Empire,  and  was  to  es¬ 
tablish  the  reign  of  the  Jewish  God  here  on  earth, 
bringing  rewards  to  the  good  and  punishments  to  the 
wicked.  Those  who  hold  that  Christ  shared  this  ex¬ 
pectation  say,  no  doubt,  that  He  made  something  finer 
of  it;  but  the  fact  remains  that,  if  He  did  share  it,  He 
was  mistaken.  The  change  has  never  happened,  nor 
do  most  Christians  now  believe  that  it  ever  will  hap¬ 
pen.  Yet  we  are  told  that  His  teaching,  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  and  elsewhere,  was  based  on  this  mis¬ 
taken  expectation  of  His;  that  He  said,  “Take  no 
thought  for  the  morrow,”  because  He  believed  there 
was  not  going  to  be  a  morrow;  that,  when  He  said, 
“Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God,” 
He  meant  that  they  should  soon  actually  see  God  on 
this  earth  and  in  this  life. 


73 


74 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


If  this  be  true,  then  Christians  must  accept  Christ’s 
teaching  for  reasons  other  than  He  would  have  given ; 
and  it  must  seem  to  them  right  by  a  fortunate  accident. 
He  could  not,  we  are  told,  be  superior  to  the  illusions 
of  His  own  time;  but  out  of  those  illusions  He  made  a 
beautiful  system  of  morality.  Yet  it  is  the  mark  of 
men  of  genius  to  be  superior  to  the  illusions  of  their 
own  time.  Galileo  did  not  share  the  illusion  that  the 
sun  went  round  the  earth ;  and  so  it  would  not  be  even 
a  miracle,  but  only  a  sign  of  genius,  if  Christ  did  not 
share  the  illusion  of  the  Jewish  Kingdom  of  God,  of  a 
coming  celestial  revolution. 

Now  it  cannot  be  denied  that  many  of  the  reported 
sayings  of  Christ  support  the  view  that  He  did  share 
this  illusion.  For  instance,  after  speaking  of  certain 
signs  commonly  mentioned  in  the  Apocalyptic  writings 
of  His  time,  He  says,  “When  ye  see  these  things  come 
to  pass,  know  ye  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand”  ; 
and  He  continues,  “Verily  I  say  unto  you,  this  genera¬ 
tion  shall  not  pass  away  until  all  be  fulfilled.”  Again 
He  speaks  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  coming  with 
power  and  of  those  who  shall  not  taste  of  death  until 
they  see  it.  I  mention  only  these  instances,  but  there 
are  many  more;  and  certainly  the  writers  of  the  Gos¬ 
pels  believed  that  His  Kingdom  was  coming  soon  and 
that  He  meant  by  it  what  other  Jews  of  his  time  meant. 
But  there  are  also  many  sayings  in  which  Christ  de¬ 
scribes  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  which  cannot  mean 
what  other  Jews  meant  by  it.  “Whereunto  shall  I 
liken  the  Kingdom  of  God?”  He  cries,  showing  that  He 
meant  by  it  something  hard  for  His  hearers  to  under¬ 
stand,  something,  as  He  said,  which  could  be  explained 
to  them  only  in  parables.  And  He  likens  it  to  things 
such  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  leaven,  a  hidden  trea¬ 
sure,  and  a  pearl  of  great  price,  which  have  no  meaning 
if  applied  to  the  conventional  Jewish  Kingdom.  He 
says,  “The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you,”  or 
“among  you,”  it  does  not  matter  which;  for  in  either 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


75 


case  the  words  insist  that  the  Kingdom  already  exists, 
that  it  is  something  to  be  seen  or  found  and  not  some¬ 
thing  about  to  happen  from  without.  It  is  an  internal 
as  well  as  an  external  reality,  something  that  may  be 
sown  and  will  grow  within  us. 

I  would  contend  that  these  sayings,  not  clearly  un¬ 
derstood  by  His  hearers  and  contrary  to  what  they  ex¬ 
pected  Him  to  say,  are  more  likely  to  be  just  what 
He  did  say  than  the  other  sayings,  in  which  we  can 
often  trace  a  growing  adaptation  to  current  beliefs.  St. 
Matthew  makes  many  of  His  sayings  about  the  King¬ 
dom  more  Apocalyptic,  more  conventional  than  the 
same  sayings  in  St.  Mark;  and  even  in  St.  Mark 
there  is  an  Apocalyptic  passage  (Chapter  13)  which 
few  now  believe  to  be  authentic.  But  the  sayings 
which  were  contrary  to  common  belief  cannot  have 
been  subject  to  this  process  of  adaptation;  they  remain 
and  were  reported  because  He  said  them. 

We  are  all  agreed,  I  suppose,  that  Christ,  whether 
He  be  to  us  only  man  or  God  also,  was  a  person  of  su¬ 
perior  intelligence;  and  there  is  no  doubt  which  view 
of  the  Kingdom  is  the  more  intelligent.  The  one  is 
mere  myth,  a  dream  of  wish-fulfillment;  the  other  is 
both  religion  and  philosophy.  The  one  is  something 
now  obsolete,  even  though  we  believe  that  good  came 
of  it;  the  other  is  something  with  meanings  which  we 
have  yet  to  discover.  If  the  first  be  right,  it  is  hard  to 
understand  why  the  teaching  of  Christ  has  had  so  much 
power  in  the  world,  and  for  so  long.  If  the  second, 
that  is  not  hard  to  understand;  for  in  that  teaching 
there  is  the  future  rather  than  the  past;  it  is,  itself, 
like  a  grain  of  mustard  seed  and  capable  of  infinite 
growth. 

Yet,  as  in  Christ’s  own  day  the  Jews  desired  and  ex¬ 
pected  a  material  Kingdom  of  God  and  were  rebuked 
by  Him  because  they  looked  for  material  signs  of  it,  so 
now  there  are  many  to  whom  the  spiritual  view  of  the 
Kingdom  seems  cold  and  unsubstantial. 


76 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


It  is  said,  for  instance,  that  Christ  could  not  have 
spoken  with  so  much  passion  of  His  Kingdom,  if  He 
had  meant  by  it  only  a  “purely  ethical”  change.  No 
indeed,  Christ  speaks  always  as  if  He  had  news  for 
mankind;  and  He  cannot  have  thought  it  was  news 
that  men  ought  to  be  good  rather  than  bad.  We  have 
to  account  for  His  passion  by  the  nature  of  His  belief; 
it  is  not  accounted  for  if  He  was  a  purely  ethical 
teacher;  but  there  is  another  alternative,  besides  the 
view  that  He  was  a  teacher  of  things  untrue,  namely, 
the  view  that  He  was  a  visionary,  that  He  did  actually 
see  His  Kingdom  of  God,  and  that  He  wished  all  men 
to  see  it. 

Most  people  mean  by  a  visionary  one  who  sees  things 
that  are  not  there;  but  the  word  means  one  who  sees 
what  others  cannot  see.  If  Christ  was  a  visionary  in 
this  sense,  if  He  was  aware  of  His  Kingdom  of  God  as 
an  existing  reality,  as  the  only  true  reality,  which 
would  change  the  lives  of  men  if  they  could  see  it 
also,  then  we  can  understand  the  eagerness  with  which 
He  preached  it  and  that  cry  of  His:  “Whereunto  shall 
I  liken  the  Kingdom  of  God?”  He  knew  that  others 
did  not  see  it  and  that  it  was  hard  to  make  them  under¬ 
stand  what  He  meant  by  it.  He  could  not  talk  to  them 
in  philosophical  terms,  for  there  were  none  in  His 
language;  and  this  Kingdom  of  His  was  something 
too  real  to  Him  for  any  general  or  abstract  words;  it 
was  something  to  be  described,  not  defined.  By  this 
I  do  not  mean  that  He  saw  a  celestial  spectacle  with 
His  eyes;  if  that  were  so,  the  Kingdom  would  still  be 
a  material  thing,  however  splendid.  Vision  is  not  a 
seeing  of  different  things,  but  a  seeing  of  things  dif¬ 
ferently.  Two  men  may  hear  with  their  ears  a  piece  of 
music,  but  to  one  it  will  be  only  a  chaos  of  noise,  to 
the  other  music ;  and  only  the  second  hears  the  reality 
of  it,  knows  what  it  is  and  why  it  is.  Or,  to  take  an¬ 
other  example,  one  man  sees  a  number  of  objects  or 
phenomena  and  is  aware  of  no  relation  between  them ; 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


77 


another  is  suddenly  aware  of  a  relation  in  which  they 
are  all  connected.  He  makes  a  scientific  discovery,  his 
mind  grasps  a  new  truth;  and  that  again  is  vision. 
Reality,  in  fact,  is  something  that  can  be  seen  only  by 
means  of  vision;  and  if  we  say  that  Christ  was  a 
visionary,  we  mean  that  He  saw  reality,  saw  an  order 
and  relation  in  things  which  other  men  do  not  see. 

These  are  cold  words,  which  we  must  use  because  we 
do  not  see;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  the  vision  is 
cold  to  one  who  sees  it.  On  the  contrary,  men’s  visions, 
whether  of  truth,  of  beauty,  or  of  righteousness,  are 
what  they  will  live  and  die  for;  the  pity  is  that  there 
are  no  words  by  which  they  can  convince  other  men  of 
their  reality.  And  yet  the  great  visionaries  have  more 
lasting  power  over  us  than  any  other  men ;  and  Christ 
still  has  this  power,  so  that  we  wish  to  know  what  He 
meant  by  His  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  hope  to  see  it 
also. 

We  are  now  more  concerned  with  it  than  Christians 
ever  were  in  the  past,  because,  without  it,  Christianity 
is  too  primitive,  too  personal,  too  unphilosophic  even 
to  satisfy  our  minds.  There  have  always  been  two 
tendencies  in  Christian  theology;  the  one  Jewish,  which 
makes  of  God  merely  a  person  and  too  like  ourselves; 
the  other  Greek,  which  makes  Him  too  abstract  and  so 
unreal.  But  orthodox  Christianity  has  usually  in¬ 
clined  too  much  to  the  Jewish  view  of  God;  and  that 
view  is  now  impossible  to  the  modern  world,  however 
firmly  it  may  be  held  still  by  a  few  devout  reaction¬ 
aries.  We  see  an  order  in  the  universe  which  is  not 
merely  moral  or  personal,  which  we  cannot  interpret 
in  terms  of  a  series  of  commandments,  ten  or  more. 
There  is  for  us  a  scientific,  a  philosophical,  order  in 
reality  itself,  and  our  religion  must  express  that,  if  we 
are  to  believe  in  it.  Now,  the  doctrine  of  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God,  or  of  Heaven,  does  express  that  scientific 
or  philosophical  order.  It  is  a  metaphor,  not  only  for 
some  one,  but  for  some  thing  in  which  the  divine  pro- 


78 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


cess  is  manifested.  St.  John  said,  “No  man  hath  seen 
God  at  any  time”;  but  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  some¬ 
thing  that  can  be  seen;  and  upon  the  seeing  of  it  the 
belief  in  God  must  be  based.  Further  it  is  a  doctrine 
which,  unlike  the  narrow,  primitive  belief  in  a  God 
always  commanding,  a  too  personal  and  too  human 
God,  does  provide  a  necessary  connection  between  faith 
and  works.  For,  according  to  Christ’s  doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom,  we  must  live  in  a  certain  way  if  we  are  to 
see  it;  and  the  more  clearly  we  see  it,  the  more  we 
shall  be  impelled  to  live  in  that  way.  “Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart:  for  they  shall  see  God” — that  is  not  a 
contradiction  of  St.  John’s  saying;  it  means  “Blessed 
are  the  single-minded:  for  they  shall  see  reality,  the 
heart  of  which  is  God.”  According  to  the  primitive, 
too  personal,  belief  in  God,  He  is  a  Being  who  might 
appear  to  a  man  as  one  man  to  another,  suddenly 
and  with  an  effect  of  instant  conviction.  According  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  that  Kingdom, 
which  is  reality,  is  something  we  can  train  ourselves 
to  see  as  an  artist  trains  himself  by  the  practice  of  his 
art  to  see  beauty.  But  as  he  knows  that  he  can  never 
see  the  whole  of  beauty,  so  we  know  that  we  shall  not 
see  the  whole  of  reality.  Truth  is  not  something  we 
can  suddenly  grasp  and  express  in  a  sentence,  as  when 
we  say,  “Two  and  two  are  four.”  Because  it  is  real 
and  not  merely  a  proposition  in  words,  it  is  something 
that  may  grow  unendingly  clearer  to  our  minds  and  to 
all  their  faculties.  Being  real,  it  is  not  truth  only,  for 
truth  by  itself  is  but  an  account  of  reality;  it  is  also 
beauty  and  righteousness;  and  all  these  three  in  one 
are  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

But  this  reality,  this  Kingdom,  is  not  necessarily  to 
be  seen  at  all  in  the  mass  of  disconnected  facts  of 
which  the  natural  man  is  aware,  any  more  than  beauty 
or  truth  are  necessarily  to  be  seen  by  every-one.  You 
must  be  seeking  beauty  or  truth,  you  must  value  them 
absolutely,  if  you  are  to  see  them;  and  so  it  is  with 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


79 


the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  is  easy  enough,  in  the  world 
as  we  know  it,  to  see  only  chaos,  to  see  nothing  but 
the  struggle  for  a  life  which  is  not  worth  having  if 
there  is  nothing  else  to  struggle  for.  But,  according  to 
all  the  great  visionaries,  reality  is  a  hidden  treasure, 
something  we  must  train  ourselves  to  find.  It  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  we  do  not  see  it  and  therefore  do 
not  believe  that  it  exists.  That  attitude,  which  many 
think  scientific,  would  prevent  the  seeing  of  all  scien¬ 
tific  truths ;  for  they  are  certainly  not  what  the  natural 
man  sees.  Christ  insists  always  upon  the  need  for  a 
different  attitude,  one  of  value  and  expectation,  one 
that  commits  us  to  great  sacrifices  before  we  can  even 
see  the  prize.  Just  as  there  is  a  difference  between  the 
chaotic  and  discordant  reality  of  which  the  natural 
man  is  aware  and  that  reality  which  is  to  be  seen  by 
vision,  so  there  is  a  difference  between  the  life  led  by 
those  who  believe  only  in  the  one  and  the  life  led 
by  those  who  seek  the  other.  When  Christ  says  that 
our  righteousness  must  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  He  means  that  it  must  be  a 
righteousness  based  on  belief  in  that  other  reality,  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  on  a  desire  to  see  it  and  to  be  of 
it.  The  old  law  was  a  law  of  commands;  the  new  is 
rather  what  we  call  scientific  or  philosophic ;  it  follows, 
not  from  the  arbitrary  will  of  God  uttered  in  a  series 
of  edicts,  but  from  a  conviction  that  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  reality.  Yet  the  new  law  is  not  merely  scien¬ 
tific  or  philosophic,  nor  is  it  merely  law.  Above  all  it 
is  based  on  vision.  It  says,  “Live  in  a  certain  way 
so  that  you  may  see ;  and,  when  you  see,  you  will  know 
why  you  should  live  in  that  way.”  There  is  a  saying 
of  Lao-tse,  the  Chinese  sage,  which  belongs  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven — “True  virtue  is 
always  paradoxical  at  first;  yet  in  the  end  it  exhibits 
complete  conformity  with  nature.”  So  the  sayings  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  seem  paradoxical  at  first; 
but  they  will  exhibit  complete  uniformity  with  nature, 


80 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


or  reality,  when,  by  obeying  them,  we  come  to  see  what 
reality  is.  Hence  Christ’s  insistence  on  the  need  for 
a  change  of  heart,  for  conversion,  as  we  call  it;  He 
means  by  that,  not  merely  a  change  of  conduct,  but 
another  view  of  the  nature  of  reality;  and  what  He 
promises  is  that,  if  we  live  according  to  that  view,  we 
shall  see  the  Kingdom  of  God  more  and  more  clearly  ; 
that  there  will  always  be  a  closer  and  closer  connection 
between  our  faith  and  our  works,  until  they  become 
one.  If  we  are  pure  in  heart,  we  shall  see  God;  and, 
when  we  see  God,  we  shall  be,  of  necessity,  pure  in 
heart. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  preaches,  above  all  things, 
self-forgetfulness;  and  there  are  many  who  speak  of 
self-forgetfulness,  or  self-sacrifice,  as  if  it  were  a  good 
in  itself.  'But  that  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  Mankind  will  never  even  try  to  forget 
themselves  unless  it  be  for  something  positive,  some¬ 
thing  better  worth  remembering;  and  the  valuing  of 
self-sacrifice  for  its  own  sake  is  not  only  unattractive, 
but  also  morbid.  It  is  the  notion  of  the  pessimist,  of 
Schopenhauer,  for  instance,  who,  like  Christ,  held  that 
we  must  get  rid  of  the  “will-to-live,”  but  who  had 
nothing  positive  to  offer  instead  of  it.  Christ  also 
says  that  we  must  escape  from  the  will-to-live,  but  into 
something  positive,  something  better  worth  having, 
namely,  life  itself,  which  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.  For 
Him  reality  is  something  to  be  found,  not  something 
to  be  fled  from;  and  so  even  the  self  is  something  to 
be  found,  not  fled  from.  To  me  the  doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom  seems  new  and  inspiriting  because  it  implies, 
not  that  I  have  a  self  which  I  must  lose  in  some  kind 
of  nothingness,  but  that  I  have  yet  to  find  myself  by 
losing  what  I  take  to  be  myself.  The  Kingdom,  for 
mankind,  is  an  order  like  that  of  music,  which  already 
exists,  has  existed,  and  will  exist,  for  ever  and  ever, 
but  of  which  we  must  become  a  part,  if  we  also  are  to 
exist  fully.  With  regard  to  it,  we  are  all  like  notes 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


81 


which,  until  they  are  part  of  music,  are  mere  noises 
without  meaning  or  character.  But  when  they  are 
part  of  it,  when  they  fall  into  the  order,  they  are  not 
lost  but  found;  they  get  character  and  meaning  only 
from  a  right  relation  with  each  other. 

This  view  of  the  human  self  is,  I  think,  confirmed 
even  by  our  own  common  experience ;  for  it  is  true,  and 
we  become  more  and  more  aware  of  it,  that  we  are 
entirely  different  beings  according  as  we  are  in  a  right 
or  a  wrong  relation  with  each  other.  And  how  do  we 
know  whether  a  relation  is  right  or  wrong?  Not 
merely  by  laws  of  morality,  but  by  the  fact  that  in  a 
right  relation  the  self  is  both  lost  and  found;  if  at 
first  it  is,  paradoxically,  sacrificed,  in  the  end  it  is 
heightened  and  finds  itself  far  more  real  through  that 
sacrifice.  The  sacrifice  is  not  the  end;  rather  the 
heightening,  the  intensifying,  the  abounding  life  of 
the  self,  that  is  the  end.  Yet  of  this  we  have  no 
knowledge  at  all,  so  long  as  we  live  only  for  ourselves. 
We  are  like  notes  that  do  not  even  know  there  can  be 
music.  Of  this  difference  and  change  I  will  give  a 
simple  example.  Think  of  children  quarreling  to¬ 
gether  in  the  gutter,  of  their  aimless  ugly  noises,  their 
instinctive,  almost  mechanical  behavior;  and  then 
think  of  the  same  children  trained  to  sing  together  a 
beautiful  piece  of  music  or  to  act  a  beautiful  play.  In 
the  first  case  they  are  like  little  monkeys ;  in  the  second 
like  little  angels ;  and  it  is  the  relation  that  makes  all 
the  difference.  And  so  it  is  with  all  human  beings; 
they  can  be  like  monkeys  and  worse  than  monkeys, 
since  there  is  all  the  human  wasted  in  them;  or  like 
players  in  an  orchestra,  with  all  their  powers  height¬ 
ened,  all  their  selves  found,  in  the  performance  of 
a  great  piece  of  music.  That  is  a  concrete  instance 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  only  an  instance. 
The  Kingdom  itself  is,  as  it  were,  a  permanent  and 
secure  state  of  music  in  the  whole  of  life,  in  all  human 
relations. 


82 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


Again,  what  makes  the  doctrine  real  and  impor¬ 
tant  to  us  is  the  fact  that  the  Kingdom  is  always 
a  relation,  that  a  man  cannot  enter  into  it  by  himself 
any  more  than  he  can  play  lawn  tennis  by  himself. 
There  is  an  old  idea  of  salvation  still  persisting,  as 
something  which  the  individual  can  obtain  from  God, 
as  a  kind  of  privilege  and  therefore  to  be  got  by  a  kind 
of  magic.  But,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  King¬ 
dom,  salvation  means  a  right  relation,  it  means  enter¬ 
ing  into  that  order,  becoming  part  of  that  music,  which 
is  the  Kingdom.  It  is,  therefore,  something  which 
men  must  achieve  all  together  and  by  the  common  or¬ 
dering  of  their  whole  lives.  Music,  the  dance,  all  the 
arts,  are  a  prophecy  of  it;  worship  as  it  should  be, 
when  it  is  the  practice  of  all  the  arts  and  the  exercise 
of  all  the  faculties,  is  a  prophecy  of  it;  and  worship 
exists,  the  arts  exist,  because  the  Kingdom  of  God 
exists  and  because  men,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
are  aware  of  the  Kingdom  in  them.  They  are  only 
an  imperfect  prophecy  because  they  do  not,  and  can¬ 
not,  fill  the  whole  of  our  lives;  but  by  means  of  them 
the  Kingdom  becomes  real  to  us,  is  something  actually 
experienced  and  not  merely  a  dogma  or  an  abstraction. 
Music  is,  as  it  were,  a  pattern  of  the  Kingdom  of  God ; 
and  here  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom,  passing  beyond 
all  Jewish  conceptions,  comes  near  to  Platonism;  only 
it  is  richer  and  more  credible,  because  it  has  in  it  a 
different  and  more  dynamic  view  of  perfection.  The 
Platonic  idea  of  perfection  is  static,  something  that  al¬ 
ways  has  been  and  always  will  be  changeless.  In  that 
we  cannot  now  believe,  as  we  cannot  believe  in  the 
Jewish  notion  of  God.  But  we  shall  find  in  Christ’s 
idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  if  we  take  it  quite 
seriously  and  try  to  state  it  in  philosophic  terms,  an 
idea  of  perfection  which  is  dynamic  and  of  our  own 
time.  It  is  something  which  grows  as  well  as  something 
which  is  for  ever  and  ever;  and  it  grows  in  the  soul  of 
man.  It  was  this  to  Christ  because  He  did  not  think 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


83 


about  it  so  much  as  see  it;  but,  if  we  think  about  it, 
we  can  express  His  meaning  in  the  paradox  that  per¬ 
fection  would  not  be  perfect  if  it  were  without  the 
power  of  growth  and  enrichment,  for  then  it  would  not 
be  alive.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is,  above  all  things, 
alive  and  may  be  part  of  our  own  life.  We  can  not 
only  see  the  pattern  and  conform  to  it;  but  we  can 
make  it,  and  make  it  always  richer,  more  real,  in  our 
own  lives,  our  own  thoughts  and  actions,  our  whole 
society. 

There  it  is  like  art;  for  art,  you  may  say,  is  made 
according  to  pattern,  according  to  eternal,  Platonic 
ideas  of  beauty;  and  yet  each  work  of  art  is  new  and 
brings  something  new  into  the  universe;  it  is  a  work 
of  art  because  it  not  only  conforms  to  the  idea  of 
beauty  but  also  makes  that  idea;  and  so  we  may  not 
only  live  according  to  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
but  also  make  that  Kingdom,  enrich  it  with  the  reality 
of  our  own,  personal  achievements. 

So  we  come  to  the  doctrine  of  the  immanent  God¬ 
head,  which  is  implied  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God;  for  the  immanent  Godhead,  for  those  who 
really  believe  in  it,  is  not  merely  an  imitation  of  the 
transcendent  Godhead ;  it  is  Godhead  because  it  has  an 
independent  existence,  because  it  lives.  So  there  is  in 
it  the  character,  the  personality  of  the  individual ;  and 
this,  if  it  grows  in  divinity,  does  add  something  to  the 
very  nature  of  divinity.  But  we  are  still  afraid  of  the 
promise  of  Christ’s  doctrine  and  will  not  dare  even  to 
state  it  to  ourselves.  Donne,  in  one  of  his  sermons, 
does  dare  to  state  it.  If  ever  he  attains  to  Heaven,  he 
says,  “I  shall  be  so  like  God  as  that  the  devil  himself 
shall  not  know  me  from  God  .  .  .  not  to  conceive  any 
more  hope  of  my  falling  from  that  Kingdom  than  of 
God  being  driven  out  of  it.”  He  means,  and  Christ 
means,  that  we  can  achieve  the  utter  security  of  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Godhead  itself,  in  ourselves;  not  so 
that  we  shall  lose  our  identity  in  perfection,  but  so  that 


84 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


we  shall  find  it;  as  in  the  relation  of  beauty  all  objects 
become  one  but  are  heightened  in  their  identity,  not 
emptied  of  it. 

The  reader  may  be  impatient,  here,  that  I  should 
try  to  state  a  doctrine  so  passionate,  so  visionary,  thus 
in  general  terms;  but,  I  think,  we  need  to  understand 
it,  to  grasp  it  with  all  our  faculties  slowly  and  one  by 
one;  for  we  do  not  start  with  the  vision,  but  only 
with  the  potentiality  of  it.  The  immanent  Godhead, 
if  it  really  is  in  us,  is  in  all  things  potential ;  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God  is,  for  us,  potential.  Our  aim  is  to  see 
it,  as  Christ  saw  it,  and  then  to  be  of  it  and  to  make 
it;  but  we  must  also  know  where,  and  how,  to  look 
for  it.  And  Christianity  has  long  been  losing  its  hold 
upon  the  mind  of  man  because  Christians  have  not 
regarded  the  ardor  of  thought  as  one  of  the  Christian 
virtues.  That  ardor  is  the  ardor  of  discovery  and  they 
have  feared  discovery;  they  have  looked  back  to  the 
past,  like  scholars,  rather  than  forward  to  the  future, 
like  men  of  science  and  artists.  We  need  now  a  Chris¬ 
tianity  that  shall  enlist  all  the  faculties  of  the  human 
mind;  that  shall  say  to  us — “There  is  something  be¬ 
fore  you  to  be  discovered,  not  merely  something  be¬ 
hind  you  to  be  learned.”  For  we  do  not  believe  what 
we  learn  as  we  believe  what  we  discover;  since  in 
learning,  in  obeying,  we  use  only  certain  faculties; 
but  in  discovering,  and  acting  upon  our  discovery,  we 
use  them  all.  The  whole  will,  the  whole  self  goes  with 
the  process  of  discovery,  but  much  of  it  must  be 
dragged  into  the  process  of  learning  and  obeying.  So 
we  need  to  see  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a  fact  to  be  dis¬ 
covered,  found  like  a  treasure  hid  in  a  field,  and  found 
by  us,  not  by  Christ  only  or  the  saints  of  the  early 
Church.  Then,  if  we  find  it,  we  shall  live  according  to 
our  vision  of  it,  not  according  to  law;  for  the  whole 
will,  the  whole  self,  will  then  pour  into  the  effort  to 
belong  to  it  and  to  make  it  more  real,  more  precise, 
more  rich,  in  ourselves.  But  we  must,  as  the  early 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


85 


Christians  did,  once  more  see  it  as  a  society;  with 
philosophic  as  well  as  moral  conviction  we  must  be¬ 
lieve  that  the  Kingdom  cannot  be  perfected,  cannot 
wholly  exist,  until  all  men,  all  living  things,  are  part 
of  it.  As  St.  Paul  says,  all  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth;  as  St.  Augustine  says,  Thou  hast  made  us 
for  Thyself ;  and  restless  are  our  hearts  until  they  rest 
in  Thee.  The  very  aim  of  life  itself  is  to  become  fully 
alive  in  the  Kingdom  of  God;  the  aim  of  reality  is  to 
attain  to  complete  reality  in  that  Kingdom.  And 
consciousness,  that  still  precious  achievement  and  pos¬ 
session  of  man,  is  consciousness,  not  merely  of  self, 
but  of  the  Kingdom,  the  life,  the  reality,  in  which  alone 
the  self  can  be  fully  achieved.  We  hear  much  talk  now 
of  the  unconscious;  it  is  even  glorified  sometimes  as 
the  source  of  all  power  and  joy;  but,  when  they  speak 
of  the  unconscious,  most  people  confuse  two  different 
things.  There  is  the  subconscious,  which  is  merely 
material  used  by  the  conscious  ill  or  well;  and  there 
is  the  superconscious,  a  state  to  which  we  sometimes 
attain  after  long  training  and  effort  of  the  conscious, 
that  state  in  which  men  seem  without  effort  to  do 
things  far  above  themselves  and  to  which,  when  they 
achieve  it,  they  consent  with  wonder  and  joy.  It  is 
the  .super-conscious  that  achieves  great  works  of  art, 
great  acts  of  heroism,  sudden  visions  of  reality;  and 
it  is  the  Kingdom  of  God  growing  in  the  mind  of  man. 
It  is  possible  only  to  those  who  have ‘passed  from  the 
subconscious  to  conscious  effort,  who  have  the  goal 
of  the  Kingdom  before  them,  even  if  they  have  never 
yet  seen  it.  Then,  with  the  superconscious,  they,  see 
it,  at  least  in  part,  and  are  filled  with  the  power  of  it, 
and  the  power  to  make  it.  Then  they  can  understand 
the  meaning  of  those  strange  words  of  Christ,  so  often 
ignored  like  others  of  his  greatest  and  most  difficult 
sayings — “He  that  believeth  on  Me,  the  works  that  I 
do  shall  he  do  also;  and  greater  works  than  these 
shall  he  do.”  The  promise,  for  those  who  believe  in  the 


86 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


Kingdom  of  God,  is  infinite ;  because  it  is  here  and  now, 
whatever  different  names  men  may  call  it  by;  and  be¬ 
cause  it  is  always  something  to  be  made  and  to  grow 
in  man  himself,  something  that  will  take  on  new  forms 
of  beauty  in  each  new  expression  of  it,  something  which 
is  always  of  the  future  because  it  is  of  eternity,  and 
which  is  immanent  because  it  is  transcendent. 


CHAPTER  VII 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE? 

By  Professor  Elihu  Grant 

The  Bible  seldom  comes  before  us  in  its  own  right. 
The  moment  it  is  presented  we  are  conscious  that  here 
is  a  book  of  reputation  and  service  through  many  cen¬ 
turies  and  one  for  which  great  claims  have  been  made 
in  our  own  day.  On  the  other  hand,  its  detractors  say 
that  it  is  an  antiquated  book  and,  in  various  ways, 
an  obstruction  to  real  progress. 

What  impression  would  the  Bible  make  if  it  were 
to  come  to  us  without  recommendation?  We  should 
note  that  it  is  an  Eastern  work  of  considerable  bulk, 
translated  from  languages  of  an  ancient  past,  telling 
the  story  of  races  and  tribes,  nations  and  sects  in  the 
Levant,  that  it  is  much  concerned  with  religion  and 
morals.  Three  quarters  of  it  is  the  elementary  sacred 
literature  of  a  small  but  culturally  important  people, 
the  Jews.  The  other  quarter  is  the  peculiarly  authori¬ 
tative  sacred  book  of  Christians  who  estimate  in  vary¬ 
ing  ways  the  value  of  the  earlier  portion.  Probably 
most  Christians,  by  count,  consider  the  Old  Testament 
of  equal,  or  nearly  equal,  worth  with  the  New. 

If  we  go  beyond  these  facts,  even  a  cursory  reading 
shows  several  grades  of  aesthetic  and  inspirational 
quality.  The  collection  contains  contributions  of  at 
least  a  thousand  years  and  owes  cultural  dependence 
and  literary  connection  with  remoter  ages.  Yet,  few  of 
the  pages,  if  any,  sprang  from  a  purely  artistic  desire 
to  create,  but  usually  show  strong  moral  and  religious 
conviction  and,  often,  didactic  intention. 

87 


88 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


How  did  this  ancient,  foreign,  and,  at  times,  obscure 
book  become  so  influential?  No  doubt  its  great  name 
is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  it  has  been  powerfully 
recommended  by  church  authority.  But  others,  besides 
powerful  churches  and  rigid  sects,  have  given  allegiance 
to  it.  At  times,  heretics  and  independents  have  valued 
it,  which  indicates  an  intrinsic  worth  as  a  mentor, 
comforter,  and  stimulator  of  the  inner  life.  It  seems 
that  one  has  only  to  escape  all  trammels  and  prejudices 
concerning  the  Bible  to  increase  one’s  esteem  for  it. 
The  notion  that  personal  salvation  is  in  some  sense 
derived  from  the  contents  of  books  is  an  ancient 
and  perhaps  Oriental  one  which  has  been  passed  on 
successfully  to  the  Western  World.  It  cannnot,  how¬ 
ever,  account  for  the  original  prestige  of  these  Scrip¬ 
tures,  since  in  every  case  the  larger  value  had  been 
appreciated  before  any  writing  was  placed  in  a  sacred 
collection.  None  of  these  books  was  written  to  go  into 
the  Bible.  Each  had  been  tested  and  revered  before 
it  was  included.  So  we  may  say  that  the  right  fame 
of  these  writings  was  fairly  secure  before  they  were 
canonized  and  will,  presumably,  survive  a  rational 
treatment  of  their  contents.  Their  genius  is  of  the  en¬ 
during  order.  This  is  probably  due  to  the  very 
personal  philosophy  of  the  Bible,  culminating,  through 
realistic  presentations  of  many  personal  careers,  in  the 
consummate  personality  of  history.  Ethical  progress 
is  portrayed  in  the  Bible  with  dramatic  appeal  in  a 
series  of  works  edited  by  a  growing  religious  conscious¬ 
ness.  All  these  values  were  made  available,  early  in 
our  era,  through  many  translations,  and  have  con¬ 
tinued  until  now  to  be  widely  influential. 

The  Bible  is  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  growth; 
growth  of  the  world  and  its  peoples,  of  their  customs, 
institutions,  laws,  moral  and  religious  progress.  Be¬ 
cause  of  this  spirit  it  is  most  sympathetically  inter¬ 
preted  by  means  of  the  concept  of  development.  Un¬ 
consciously,  we  are  invited  by  our  experience  with 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE?  89 

these  Scriptures  to  think  of  life's  problems  in  the  light 
of  progress.  This  is  so  true  that  any  bad  or  backward 
person  or  standard  of  action  in  the  Bible  is  best  judged 
by  standards  farther  on  in  the  book.  Both  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  record  movements  of  the  spirit  which 
suggest  that  man  is  approaching  ever  nearer  to  the 
destiny  of  a  moral  being  in  a  world  of  personality  as 
well  as  in  one  of  material  forces.  So  then,  though  a 
book  cannot  keep  pace  with  advances  in  knowledge, 
it  may  be  congenial  with  the  mood  of  essential,  advanc¬ 
ing  humanity.  The  germ  and  the  logic  of  an  incal¬ 
culable  improvement  are  of  the  very  genius  of  the 
Bible. 

Ancient  book-writing  employed  the  compilatory 
method  with  much  more  freedom  than  is  the  custom  at 
present.  This  fact  makes  it  easier  to  reach  back  through 
the  results  of  such  accumulative  authorship  and  edi¬ 
torial  revision  to  those  sources  which  themselves  re¬ 
flect  earlier  stages  of  that  social  life  out  of  which  the 
literature  grew.  The  Bible  is  much  franker  about 
its  literary  history  than  a  modern  book  would  be.  It 
gives  us  the  names  of  older  books  and  collections  from 
which  it  drew  material  and  suggests  others  unnamed. 
Its  quotations  are  often  so  direct  as  to  make  it  easy 
to  distinguish  them  from  surrounding  literary  ma¬ 
terial.  Thus  small  and  large  fragments  of  ancient  lost 
works  are  recoverable  in  many  of  the  books.  A  no¬ 
table  instance  of  the  preservation  of  both  the  source 
and  the  derived  account  is  found  in  the  book  of  Judges. 
In  Chapters  4  and  5  there  are  descriptions  of  the  same 
events.  It  seems  pretty  clear  that  the  brilliant  poem 
in  Chapter  5  is  the  main  dependence  and  source  of  the 
prose  narrative  in  Chapter  4.  This  poem,  which  is 
probably  the  earliest  passage  of  its  length  in  the  Bible, 
is  a  ruggedly  heroic  piece  of  primitive  song,  telling 
us  of  early  Hebrew  society  long  before  the  rise  of  the 
monarchy  in  Israel.  The  prose  narrative  based  upon 
it  was  written  at  a  later  period  of  the  national  his- 


90 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


tory,  after  the  kingdom  was  a  settled  fact.  The  prose 
writer  has  asserted  the  rights  of  interpretation  claimed 
by  all  true  authors.  It  is  fairly  clear  that  certain  other 
prose  chapters  in  the  early  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
depended  similarly  upon  poetic  source  material  not  so 
fortunately  preserved  as  Chapter  5.  We  read  in  our 
Old  Testament  of  a  famous  Book  of  Jashar,  of  a  Book 
of  the  Wars  of  Jehovah,  and  many  another  to  which 
the  Bible  writers  refer  as  sources  from  which  they  drew. 

For  something  over  a  hundred  years  it  has  been 
clearly  perceived  that  certain  ancient  books  Jay  back 
of  our  Pentateuch.  At  least  four  such  books  are  clearly 
distinguishable  by  their  different  interests  and  styles. 
The  evolving  of  one  book,  or  harmony,  out  of  the  four 
was  done  in  the  interest  of  a  connected  history  of  the 
chosen  people,  their  origins,  their  providential  career, 
and  their  manifest  destiny.  The  completed  work, 
including  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and 
Deuteronomy,  formed  the  first  Bible  of  the  Jews  and 
the  only  Bible  of  the  Samaritans.  This  was  not  the 
last  time  that  such  an  undertaking  was  carried  through. 
In  the  second  Christian  century,  after  it  was  fairly 
clear  which  books  were  going  to  be  considered  as  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  New  Testament  group,  a  Christian  scholar 
by  the  name  of  Tatian  made  a  new  work  by  blending 
our  four  Gospels  in  a  harmony,  or  life  of  Christ.  This 
compilation,  or  simplified  Gospel,  was  much  liked  and 
was  used  as  a  reading  book  in  the  churches  until  the 
officials  of  the  Church  decided  to  forbid  it.  Apparently 
they  took  this  step  because  of  the  fear  that  the 
canonical  Gospels,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John, 
might  drop  out  of  sight  in  favor  of  the  handier  work. 
The  actual  result  was  that  the  “Diatessaron,”  as  Ta- 
tian’s  harmony  was  called,  disappeared  from  use  and 
view.  It  was  known  by  name  and  through  quota¬ 
tions  in  the  early  writers  who  had  seen  it,  but  for 
centuries  no  copy  was  known  to  exist.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  last  century  a  copy  was  discovered,  and  it 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE?  91 


has  now  been  republished.  It  begins  with  a  passage 
from  John  and  it  would  be  no  difficult  matter  for  a 
critical  student  who  had  never  seen  the  original  Gos¬ 
pels  to  discover  that  four  characteristic  documents  lay 
back  of  the  blend.  It  is  interesting  to  remember  this 
great  similarity  between  the  work  of  those  who  gradu¬ 
ally  compiled  the  Pentateuch  from,  say,  four  docu¬ 
ments,  and  Tatian,  who  wrote  his  harmony  at  once 
from  four  with  precisely  the  opposite  fate,  for  some 
time,  at  least.  In  one  case,  the  four  documents  dis¬ 
appeared  and  the  blended  result  remained;  in  the 
other  the  blend  was  lost  and  the  originals  were  well 
known.  No  prohibition  prevented  the  Old  Testament 
exemplar  from  outliving  the  component  sources  which, 
however,  are  pretty  clearly  discernible  in  the  final 
work. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  fact  of  development  is  as 
clear  in  the  writing  of  the  Bible  as  in  its  spirit.  We 
do  not  need  to  depend  on  a  few  illustrations  of  this, 
nor  are  we  confined  to  such  as  have  just  been  described, 
but  there  is  abundant  material  within  the  Bible  which 
shows  it.  Writers  of  later  books  in  the  collection  used 
preceding  Biblical  books  with  discriminating  freedom, 
according  to  the  purpose  for  which  they  wrote.  Let 
us  take  two  instances  only  of  this,  one  in  the  Old  and 
one  in  the  New  Testament.  We  select  the  writer  of 
Chronicles  and  the  author  of  Luke.  The  Chronicler 
made  free,  selective  use  of  earlier  Biblical  books, 
omitted,  expanded,  heightened,  and  reinterpreted  por¬ 
tions  of  them.  Although  he  mentions  more  than  a 
dozen  outside  sources  for  his  references,  yet  he  makes 
few  salient  points  not  already  contained  in  the 
canonical  books.  Since  his  interest  centered  in  the 
temple  and  ecclesiastical  affairs,  his  history  deals 
mostly  with  David,  Solomon,  and  the  kings  of  Judah. 
He  used  Samuel  and  Kings  more  than  other  books,  al¬ 
though  he  made  use  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Numbers, 
Joshua,  etc.  From  these  books  he  quoted  verbatim, 


92 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


or  paraphrased,  or  revised  so  as  to  meet  the  demands 
of  later  interpretation.  This  can  be  shown  with  great 
precision.  His  omissions  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrews 
are  very  noticeable  in  his  early  chapters,  where  the 
rich  story  lore  of  Genesis  reduces  to  little  more  than 
a  list  of  names  from  Adam  to  David,  for  whom  we  are 
prepared  by  a  chapter  on  the  disaster  to  Saul.  There 
are  long  lists  of  names,  many  details  of  organization 
and  frequent  moral  and  religious  explanations.  A  com¬ 
parison  of  the  story  in  II  Samuel  24  with  its  parallel 
in  I  Chronicles  21  shows  many  characteristic  changes, 
the  most  famous  being  that  while  in  Samuel,  accord¬ 
ing  to  an  older  theology,  David  was  tempted  by  Je¬ 
hovah  to  take  the  census,  this  is  an  abhorrent  idea  to 
the  Chronicler  who  writes  that  it  was  Satan  who  led 
David  on  to  this  enumeration.  A  less  important,  but 
still  amazing,  difference  is  seen  in  the  price  paid  by 
David  for  the  threshing  floor.  It  is  noted  as  fifty 
shekels  of  silver  in  Samuel,  but  becomes  six  hundred 
shekels  of  gold  in  Chronicles.  Similar  variations  are 
numerous.  It  is,  in  truth,  an  expurgated  history  of 
David  and  Solomon  which  the  Chronicler  presents  of 
those  two  great  ones,  in  which  the  interesting  popular 
tales,  much  poetry  and  personal  statements  derogatory 
to  them  are  omitted.  The  author  treated  in  similar 
manner  the  history  of  their  successors.1  We  have  sug¬ 
gested  but  faintly  the  freedom  with  which  the  Chron¬ 
icler  treated  Scriptures  and  the  method  is  not  unique 
with  him.  This  does  not  destroy  his  services,  but  gives 
us  the  valuable  result  that  we  know  more  of  the  mind 
of  Jews  of  his  period.  He  and  his  contemporaries  lived 
in  the  centuries  just  before  the  Christian  Era.  As 
so  often  happens,  in  writing  about  others  they  reveal 
themselves  and  supply  links  in  the  continuous  story  of 
Hebrew  development. 

The  writer  of  our  Third  Gospel  did  a  piece  of  care- 

1See  E.  L.  Curtis  and  A.  A.  Madsen,  “The  Books  of  Chronicles,” 
The  International  Critical  Commentary,  pp.  6-19.  Scribner’s,  1910. 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE?  93 


ful  research,  compared  previous  writings  and  living 
tradition.  He  made  a  judicious  combination  of  the 
results  and  wrote  the  first  of  a  two-volume  work  which 
we  call  Luke- Acts.  In  deciding  on  the  order  of  events 
in  the  life  of  Christ  he  was  influenced  most  by  the 
Gospel  according  to  Mark,  which  had  been  published 
years  previously.  He  used  another  valuable  writing 
to  which  our  Gospel  according  to  Matthew  is  also 
greatly  indebted.  He  can  be  shown  to  have  varied  the 
versions  used,  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Chronicler,  but  with  a  superior  skill  and  artistic  grace, 
as  different  as  Greek  culture  of  the  first  century  was  dif¬ 
ferent  from  that  of  a  Semitic  ecclesiastic  of  an  earlier 
day.  Luke  used  the  outline  provided  already  in  Mark’s 
Gospel  narrative,  supplementing  and  expanding  it  and 
greatly  enriching  its  contents ;  he  made  many  improve¬ 
ments  in  presentation  and  style.  Sometimes  he  added, 
sometimes  he  omitted  or  simplified,  as,  for  example,  in 
Luke  18:35.  Frequently,  he  heightened  the  effect  or 
the  impression  of  the  scene.  In  such  a  parallel  as  that 
between  Mark  1:34  and  Luke  4:41  we  have  even  the 
appearance  of  contradiction.  According  to  Mark, 
Jesus  succeeded  in  preventing  the  devils  from  utter¬ 
ance,  but  according  to  Luke,  this  was  not  until  they 
had  already  succeeded  in  actually  acclaiming  the  Lord. 

If  we  count  the  items  in  Matthew’s  version  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  thirty,  we  find  that  Luke  has 
but  twenty  of  them  and  he  did  not  include  eleven  of 
those  in  his  version  of  the  Sermon,  but  decided  to 
place  them  in  other  connections  than  those  which 
Matthew  has  suggested.  In  such  cases  it  is  now 
customary  to  follow  the  leading  of  Luke.  Notable 
among  such  rearrangements  is  the  new  context  of  the 
Lord’s  Prayer  which  Luke  gives  in  much  more  plausible 
setting  than  does  Matthew.  (See  Luke  11:1-4.)  An¬ 
other  interesting  variant  which  reveals  the  value  of 
comparative  study  is  found  in  Matthew  7:13  f.  and 
Luke  13:24  ff.  The  discourse,  according  to  Matthew, 


94 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


concerned  a  “narrow  gate,”  which  is  mentioned  in  Luke 
as  a  “narrow  door.”  The  lesson  drawn,  according  to 
Matthew,  was  of  a  place  and  way  more  difficult  to  find 
than  the  broad  way  to  destruction,  but  according  to 
Luke,  the  whole  point  is  about  a  “shut  door.”  The  in¬ 
ability  of  the  man  outside  the  door,  in  the  one  case,  is 
to  find  and  in  the  other  case  it  is  to  enter  as  he  stands 
before  it.  Therefore,  in  Luke,  the  adjective  “narrow” 
has  lost  any  significance  since  a  shut  door  is  as  effective 
a  bar,  whether  wide  or  narrow.  But  the  very  fact  that 
the  word  “narrow”  is  retained  by  Luke  where  it  has  no 
present  use  and  is  an  item  of  significance  in  Matthew, 
makes  it  pretty  clear  that  the  written  source  from 
which  both  our  First  and  Third  Gospels  drew  this  pas¬ 
sage  contained  that  persistent  adjective.  By  such 
studies  we  are  taken  one  step,  at  least,  farther  back  in 
the  record  toward  the  teacher  of  the  lesson  whose  very 
words  we  have  the  greater  hope  of  recovering.  The 
suggestion  has  been  made,  of  course,  that  these  sermons 
which  are  recorded  by  Matthew  and  Luke  are  different. 
It  is  not  easy  to  accept  this  suggestion,  however,  since 
the  fundamental  thought  of  the  two  accounts  is  the 
same,  and  the  opening  and  closing  passages  are  so  simi¬ 
lar.  In  spite  of  variations  in  the  treatment  of  these 
passages,  on  the  beatitudes  and  the  builder,  they  are 
manifestly  versions  of  the  same  originals. 

Let  us  notice  one  more  of  the  numerous  fruitful 
comparisons  possible.  In  this  case  there  seems  to  have 
been  an  actual  difference  in  tradition.  Luke,  agreeing 
with  all  the  Gospels,  indicates  that  it  was  on  Friday 
that  Jesus  died.  But  three  of  the  Gospels,  including 
Luke,  would  seem  to  place  the  date  on  the  15th  of  the 
month  Nisan,  while  the  Gospel  of  John  indicates  the 
14th,  thus,  perhaps,  throwing  the  date  in  a  different 
year.  Such  variations,  oppositions  even,  in  Biblical 
literature  are  very  well  known,  and  attention  need  not 
be  called  to  them  as  such.  What  is  not  so  well  known 
is  that  they  offer  one  of  the  chief  encouragements  to 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE?  95 


students,  since  they  make  it  more  nearly  possible  to 
recover  the  originals  on  which  they  are  founded. 
Moreover,  it  becomes  plain  that  the  first  discriminat¬ 
ing,  critical  students  of  the  Biblical  contents  were  the 
Biblical  writers  themselves.  The  results  of  such 
studies  are  giving  us  greater  hope  of  success  in  the 
effort  to  reach  the  presence  of  Jesus  and  to  hear  the 
words  of  His  teaching  as  near  as  that  can  be  done  by 
the  way  of  writings. 

Manifestly,  inspiration  works  not  by  collusion  nor  in 
any  stereotyped  form.  Each  writing  had  its  own  spe¬ 
cial  purpose  and  was  not  intended  as  a  part  in  the 
complicated  whole.  Certain  works,  such  as  Luke-Acts, 
show  the  conscious  workmanship  of  a  literary  artist 
composing  an  extended  treatise  with  great  skill  and 
devotion.  Groups  of  books,  such  as  the  Pentateuch, 
exhibit  the  heritage  of  ages  and  the  welding  together 
under  the  inspiration  of  a  great  ideal  of  venerable  docu¬ 
ments.  In  fact,  the  resumption  of  this  work  added  four 
more  books,  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel  (I  and  II),  and 
Kings  (I  and  II).  In  those  days,  the  Pentateuch,  as 
we  call  it,  using  the  later  Greek  name,  was  looked  upon 
as  a  great  book  of  guidance  {tor ah).  Its  treasured  con¬ 
tent  was  the  Law,  though  it  contained,  besides,  intro¬ 
ductory  narratives,  commentary  and  other  contextual 
material,  but  nothing  quite  of  the  glory  of  the  Law. 
It  may  be  helpful  to  us  to  recollect  in  this  way  how 
former  ages  regarded  the  Bible  in  its  successive  stages 
and  editions.  The  impulse  wjhich  produced  and  then 
added  the  four  books  which  follow  the  Pentateuch  in 
the  Hebrew  Bible  grew  out  of  one  of  the  most  remark¬ 
able  spiritual  movements  in  history,  the  prophetic. 
Prophecy  is  a  matter  into  which  the  greatest  minds,  if 
not  angels,  have  desired  to  look.  In  the  course  of  time, 
the  great  anthologies  which  we  call  by  the  name  of 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Amos,  etc.  (but  not  including  Daniel), 
came  into  separate  existence  and  later  into  a  prophetic 
volume.  Still  later  and  in  the  third  place,  the  justifi- 


96 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


able  veneration  of  such  works  as  Job,  Proverbs,  Psalms, 
and  Daniel  caused  them  to  be  assembled  in  a  sacred 
or  standard  collection  or  canon.  Certain  of  these,  as 
Psalms,  had  already  known  a  long  growth.  Within 
the  Psalter  may  be  seen,  to  this  day,  the  boundaries  of 
former  booklets,  as,  for  example,  the  beautiful  “Songs 
of  Ascents”  (120-134).  Similarly,  within  the  Book  of 
Proverbs  are  the  vestiges  of  former  groupings,  once 
published  by  themselves.  Job  contains  much  that  was 
thought  out  by  successive  delvers  into  the  mysteries  of 
the  world-old  problem  of  evil.  Some  of  it  is  expressed 
in  prose  but  most  of  the  contents  is  in  poetry.  Paul’s 
letters  were  not  written  with  the  thought  of  any  letters 
to  follow.  Several  of  them  show  consciousness  of  others 
already  written.  Perhaps  the  highest  conception  of 
inspiration  will  be  found  among  those  who  conceive  of 
the  Scriptures  as  a  transcript  of  the  experiences  of 
many  men  and  women,  named  and  unnamed,  whose 
deepest  moments  in  the  divine  school,  which  we  call 
Providence,  are  here  recorded  that  they  may  find  re¬ 
sponse  in  other  hearts. 

Four  great  dominant  moods,  or  schools  of  thinking, 
divide  the  treasures  of  the  Biblical  literature.  They 
are  four  very  different  ways  of  looking  at  life  and  yet 
each,  in  the  Providence  of  God,  has  a  large  service  to 
its  credit.  They  are  the  prophetic,  already  mentioned, 
with  its  moral  urgency  seeking  to  challenge  man  in  his 
sin  and  call  him  to  immediate  allegiance  to  the  one 
righteous  deity.  Then  there  was  the  priestly-legal  with 
its  instincts  of  discipline  within  approved  forms  of 
ritual  and  law,  yielding  at  its  best  a  pastoral  care  such 
as  that  shown  by  Ezekiel  in  exile.  An  entirely  different, 
almost  academic,  mood  grasped  the  problems  of  thought 
and  came  as  near  as  the  ancient  Hebrews  ever  did  to 
philosophy.  The  disciples  of  this  Wisdom  School  of 
the  Sages  speculated  in  their  more  reflective,  but  highly 
practical,  way  upon  the  behavior  of  man  and  nature, 
and  even  upon  the  mysteries  of  God’s  ways.  Lastly, 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE?  97 


the  lurid  melodrama  of  the  Apocalypse  was  to  serve 
to  assuage  the  agonies  of  a  people  nearly  crazed  with 
all  but  hopeless  persecution.  Strong  and  peculiar 
medicine  was  needed  for  such  abnormal  woe  as  befell 
Jews  and  Christians  on  more  than  one  occasion,  and 
we  have  the  reminders  in  Ezekiel  38-39,  Isaiah  24-27, 
Zechariah  1-6,  Joel,  Daniel,  Malachi  4:1-3,  Mat¬ 
thew  23-24,  Mark  13,  II  Thessalonians  1-2,  II  Peter, 
Jude,  and  Revelation.  If  we  ask  ourselves,  in  our  read¬ 
ing  of  the  Bible,  with  which  of  these  four  great  types 
we  are  dealing,  we  shall  increase  our  sympathetic  ap¬ 
preciation  of  the  meaning  of  the  passage.  In  Leviticus 
and  Numbers,  the  law  is  given  a  priestly  cast,  while 
in  Exodus  and  Deuteronomy,  it  is  as  likely  to  be 
found  expressed  with  a  prophetic  background.  This 
prophetic  spirit  often  lends  the  appeal  to  stories  in 
Genesis,  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  and  Kings,  and  in  the 
gospels  and  epistles  of  the  New  Testament,  while  the 
greater  effort  for  formality  and  precision  of  the  priestly 
type  is  noticeable  in  Genesis  1  and  17  and  parts  of 
Chapters  25,  28,  and  46,  in  Joshua  13  to  21,  and  in 
Chronicles  and  Ezra.  In  Paul’s  letter  to  the  Galatians 
it  is  not  difficult  to  distinguish  between  the  legalistic 
argument  of  Paul  the  rabbi  and  the  prophetic  inspira¬ 
tion  of  Paul  the  apostle.  The  former  is  seen  in 
3:15-16,  where  he  speaks  “after  the  manner  of  men,” 
and  in  4:22-31.  The  latter  note  is  struck  in  1:11-12; 
2:16;  4:6-7;  5:1  and  13-15.  In  such  books  as  Prov¬ 
erbs,  Job,  Ecclesiastes,  and  James,  with  their  non- 
mystical  quality,  one  soon  realizes  that  one  is  in  the 
masterpieces  of  the  Sages  of  the  Wisdom  School,  whose 
scattered  fragments  are  found  in  other  books  of  the 
Bible  as  well.  The  Bible  is  a  library  of  diverse  books 
which  reveal  in  their  varying  development  a  long  men¬ 
tal  history.  Layers  upon  layers,  vistas  rather  than  flat 
records,  are  apparent.  Whenever  undue  defense  or 
patronizing  care  has  been  extended  in  a  false  or  unnec¬ 
essary  solicitude,  the  Bible  has  fallen  into  comparative 


98 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


disuse,  even  if  it  has  not  met  with  abuse.  Whenever 
the  reverent  genius  of  scientific  research  has  gone  along 
with  untrammeled  enjoyment  of  its  riches,  poetic, 
symbolic,  moral,  new  value  has  been  found  increasingly. 
The  worst  treatment  is  to  take  up  any  question  of  the 
Bible  in  a  partisan  spirit,  or  to  view  its  fate  with  any 
fear.  The  Bible  will  be  there  after  all  discussion, 
whether  favorable  or  unfavorable.  It  must  divest  itself 
eventually  of  any  dogmatic  conclusion  and  start  again 
on  its  career  of  influence  by  pure  suasion.  Investiga¬ 
tion  must  be  permitted  to  do  its  particular  work  in  the 
ways  which  it  finds  available.  And  there  remains  much 
work  for  it  to  do.  When  we  express  our  best  judgment 
concerning  any  part  of  the  Bible,  or  upon  any  Biblical 
question,  it  should  be  understood  that  we  are  doing 
so  in  the  spirit  of  freedom  for  others  as  well  as  for 
ourselves,  in  order  that  no  data  of  experience  may  be 
missing  from  the  symposium. 

Devotion  does  not  need  to  wait  upon  literary  and 
historical  investigations,  though  devotion  may  often 
be  served  by  them.  The  quality  of  the  Bible  is  such 
that  it  speaks  to  the  human  spirit  with  power,  irrespec¬ 
tive  of  the  problems  of  true  scholarly  criticism,  which 
lie  in  a  different  field.  Sometimes  it  seems  that  the 
fewer  prepossessions  the  better  for  the  native  effect  of 
the  Bible  on  the  new  reader.  If  a  patient  is  revived 
and  nourished  by  a  cluster  of  choice  grapes,  it  makes 
but  little  difference  just  then  whether  the  fruit 
grew  on  the  vines  of  Spain  or  California.  However, 
in  other  ways,  the  question  is  of  considerable 
importance. 

The  naming  of  books  in  the  Bible  was  usually  a  late 
effort  at  precision  in  accounting  for  them,  and  was  com¬ 
paratively  unsatisfactory.  Often  the  name  given  a 
writing  is  flatly  contradicted  by  the  contents.  Fre¬ 
quently  the  revelation  of  the  character  of  an  author, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  whose 
author  is  really  unknown,  however  learnedly  people 


WHAT  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  THE  BIBLE?  99 


talk  about  it,  is  so  clear  that  the  addition  of  a  name 
would  not  be  much  gain. 

The  true  inspiration  of  such  noble  works  coming  to 
us  through  these  historical  and  literary  processes,  as 
have  been  indicated  above,  is  suggestively  illustrated  in 
the  Bible  itself.  Read  the  passages  in  the  great  proph¬ 
ets  which  describe  their  call,  or  inspiration,  to  ser¬ 
vice:  Amos  7:14-15;  Micah  3:8;  Isaiah  6;  Jeremiah  1; 
Ezekiel  1-3  etc.,  and  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  in¬ 
spiration  will  be  more  clearly  understood.  It  seems 
very  clear  that  these  heroes  of  the  Spirit  were  imbued 
with  the  lofty  teaching  and  even  the  very  style  of  their 
predecessors.  It  was  customary  to  describe  one’s  intro¬ 
duction  to  prophetic  service  in  certain  definite  outline 
and  terms,  but  the  peculiarities  of  each  prophet  are 
manifest  for  all  that.  Ezekiel  was  not  transformed  into 
a  poet,  nor  was  Jeremiah  led  to  the  Miltonic  expression 
of  Isaiah.  Each  man  was,  apparently,  himself,  but 
purer,  stronger,  more  single  and  effective  in  his  service 
of  the  truth.  When  he  was  inspired,  he  was  reinforced, 
so  that  we  might  say  from  these  examples  that  divine 
inspiration  is  the  enhancement,  or  quickening,  of  a 
persisting  personality.  Personalities  are  not  dispos¬ 
sessed,  or  destroyed  by  inspiration,  but  reinforced. 
The  mystery  is  comparable  with  that  of  companion¬ 
ship  and  friendship  and  is  essentially  the  mystery  of 
communication  whether  it  be  between  man  and  man, 
or  between  man  and  God. 

A  high  scientific  value  is  placed  nowadays  upon  all 
expressions  of  the  religious  mood.  Effort  is  made  con¬ 
stantly  to  understand  its  psychical  organization.  We 
wish  to  understand  the  claim  and  the  effect  of  religion 
wherever  they  are  made.  Many  efforts  have  been  made 
to  explain  man  by  a  single,  dominating  principle,  to 
unlock  him  with  one  key.  Sex,  self-preservation,  and 
other  instincts,  in  turn,  are  made  the  clue.  Religion 
affords  an  aspect  full  of  suggestion  for  the  problem. 
In  understanding  man  religiously,  we  understand  him 


100 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


in  his  peculiar  genius,  and  evaluate  the  impulse  and 
drive  of  many  of  his  energies  and  creations.  The  Bible 
has  proved  to  be  an  archive  of  religious  experience. 
Recent  study  has  deepened  the  impression  of  its  rich¬ 
ness  of  resource  in  the  field  of  the  comparative  study 
of  religion. 

The  Bible  is  secure  in  the  testimonies  of  a  venerable 
history.  Its  various  parts  are  seen  to  be  dominant  ex¬ 
pressions  of  the  best  religious  and  moral  value  of  the 
age  represented  by  each.  The  greatest  value  will  break 
forth  as  light  from  these  sacred  Scriptures  when  they 
are  freely  investigated  by  competent  readers  and 
students  who  themselves  revere  the  spirit  of  freedom. 
We  shall  employ  profitably  those  parts  of  Scripture 
which  stimulate  our  sense  of  moral  responsibility,  our 
sense  of  moral  personality  in  the  seen  and  the  unseen 
world,  which  release  our  purest  emotional  force.  Dole¬ 
ful  predictions  and  partisan  pleas  have  both  failed  and 
the  essential  glory  in  literature  of  the  Hebrew  and 
Christian  Scriptures  is  unsurpassed  and  may  safest  be 
left  to  that  spirit  of  man  which  is  the  candle  of  the 
Lord.  The  Bible  is  so  fundamentally  true  to  human 
experience  that  its  guidance  is  peculiarly  valuable  in 
indicating  direction  for  human  ideal  and  endeavor.  It 
can  have  no  real  competitor,  since  it  tends  to  send  one 
to  any  book  or  personality  or  fact  that  will  honor  truth. 
It  is  an  adjunct  to  man’s  best  conscience,  and,  like  John 
the  Baptist,  is  ready  to  recede  if  our  Christian  con¬ 
sciousness  may  thereby  advance.  If  a  homely  illustra¬ 
tion  may  be  allowed,  we  remember  when  we  eat  fish 
to  lay  aside  the  bones,  so  when  we  partake  of  this  ex¬ 
cellent  pabulum  we  shall  exercise  that  good  selective 
conscience  in  which  a  Biblical  education  has  trained  us. 
Its  authority  rests  in  its  harmony  with  the  truth  to 
which  the  Spirit  of  God  witnesses  in  our  hearts. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 

By  Professor  L.  P.  Jacks 

Christianity  has  not  explained  suffering  and  evil;  no  one 
has  done  so,  no  one  can  do  so.  Yet  Christianity  .  .  .  has  done 
two  things  greater,  more  profound  and  profitable  for  us.  .  .  . 

Christianity  has,  from  the  first,  immensely  deepened  and 
widened  .  .  .  the  fact,  the  reality,  the  awful  potency  and  baf¬ 
fling  mystery  of  sorrow,  pain,  sin,  things  which  abide  with  man 
across  the  ages.  And  Christianity  has,  from  the  first,  immensely 
increased  the  capacity,  the  wondrous  secret  and  force,  which 
issues  in  a  practical,  living,  loving  transcendence,  utilization, 
transformation  of  sorrow  and  pain,  and  even  of  sin.  .  .  . 
Christianity  gave  to  souls  the  faith  and  strength  to  grasp  life’s 
nettle.1 

When  thoughtful  people  embark  on  the  study  of  evil 
one  of  two  motives  will  commonly  be  at  work.  The 
first  is  the  desire  to  escape  from  evil,  or  to  get  relief 
from  it.  The  second,  which  is  almost  the  opposite  of 
the  first,  is  the  desire  for  power  to  bear  evil  and  to 
conquer  it. 

Which  of  these  two  motives  is  at  work  in  the  reader’s 
mind  at  the  present  moment?  Which  of  them  has 
induced  him  to  take  the  trouble  of  reading  this  chapter? 

If  his  motive  is  the  desire  to  escape  from  evil,  or 
to  get  relief  from  it,  I  must  tell  him,  plainly  and  at 
once,  that  he  will  receive  no  satisfaction  from  what  I 
am  about  to  write.  But  to  the  reader  who  is  desirous, 
not  of  relief  but  of  power — power  to  bear  evil  and 
overcome  it — I  may  possibly  have  something  to  say. 

Many  writers  on  the  problem  of  evil  (I  think  most) 

1  Baron  Friedrich  von  Hiigel,  Essays  and  Addresses ,  pp.  110  et  seq. 

101 


102 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


have  addressed  themselves  to  the  desire  for  relief . 
Two  main  groups  of  theories  have  arisen  which  are 
obviously  intended  to  meet  that  desire — the  Epicurean 
and  the  Stoic.  The  Epicurean  would  give  us  relief 
from  pain  and  suffering  by  teaching  us  to  avoid  them, 
to  flee  away  from  them,  to  turn  our  backs  upon  them, 
and  to  contrive  for  ourselves  a  mode  of  life  where  they 
are  not  to  be  found.  The  Stoic  would  relieve  us  by 
teaching  that  pain  and  suffering  are  fancies  and  preju¬ 
dices  due  to  our  ignorance,  that  what  is  evil  in  the 
part  is  good  in  the  whole . 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  both  of  these  methods  fail  utterly 
to  attain  their  object,  to  give  the  relief  they  promise. 
The  Epicurean  fails  because,  do  what  we  will,  suffering 
and  death  cannot  be  avoided  by  any  of  us.  The  Stoic 
fails  because,  like  all  sophistries,  it  can  be  instantly 
turned  upside  down  by  anybody  who  has  the  mind  to 
do  so.  To  the  optimist’s  argument  that  if  we  could  see 
the  whole  system  of  things,  we  should  find  that  evil  is 
imperfect  good,  there  always  comes  the  pessimist’s 
answer  that  if  we  could  see  the  whole  system  of  things 
we  should  find  that  good  is  imperfect  evil.  There  is,  in 
truth,  just  as  much  reason  for  believing  the  one  as  for 
believing  the  other ;  which  is  only  another  way  of  say¬ 
ing  that  both  are  false. 

In  regard  to  all  theories  which  offer  relief,  this  im¬ 
portant  point  must  be  noted  from  the  outset:  that 
nothing  whatever  is  gained,  even  theoretically,  by  ex¬ 
plaining  the  existence  of  evil  unless  at  the  same  time 
we  explain  its  amount  and  its  distribution. 

First,  as  to  the  amount.  Suppose  you  prove  that  the 
existence  of  evil  is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  good. 
Before  this  argument  can  afford  relief  to  my  doubts  and 
difficulties,  you  must  further  prove  that  the  amount 
(and  the  kind)  of  evil  that  actually  exists  in  the  world 
is  no  more  than  is  necessary  for  its  purpose.  Because 
suffering  is  necessary  it  does  not  follow  that  the  amount 
of  suffering  produced  by  the  Great  War  was  necessary. 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 


103 


It  may  have  been  far  too  much — many  of  us  think  it 
was — for  the  good  which  has  resulted,  or  is  ever  likely 
to  result,  from  it.  What  should  we  say  then  to  a  uni¬ 
verse  where  evil  is  necessary  for  good,  but  where  the 
evil  that  actually  exists  is  vastly  more  (or  less)  than 
is  necessary  for  the  good  to  which  it  leads?  Should  we 
not  call  it  an  extremely  ill-ordered  universe?  I  read 
the  other  day  a  book  intended  to  justify  the  ways  of 
God  to  man,  which  argued  that  if  men  are  to  have  teeth 
at  all  they  must  have  teeth  that  can  ache.  There  must 
therefore  be  such  a  thing  as  toothache.  Quite  so.  But 
what  if  the  number  of  aching  teeth  in  the  world  at  this 
moment  is  a  hundred  times  as  great  as  it  need  be? 
And  why  should  the  aching  be  as  violent  as  it  is? 
Would  not  a  milder  and  more  endurable  form  of  the 
malady  satisfy  the  requirements  of  the  argument?  And 
why  should  my  teeth  ache  rather  than  yours? 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  distribution.  Even 
if  you  had  proved,  as  you  never  could  do,  that  the 
amount  of  toothache  in  the  world  is  the  exact  amount 
which  the  existence  of  teeth  requires,  you  would  still 
have  to  prove  that  the  aching  teeth  are  all  in  the  heads 
of  the  right  people;  in  other  words,  that  the  evil  is 
rightly  distributed.  And  so  with  suffering  in  gen¬ 
eral.  What  should  we  think  of  a  God  who  created  a 
universe  in  which  some  men  must  suffer  for  others  but 
left  chance  to  determine  which  men  suffer  and  which 
are  suffered  for?  Should  we  not  deem  him  a  most  un¬ 
just  and  incompetent  God?  The  more  you  succeed  in 
proving  that  suffering  is  necessary  the  more  incumbent 
it  is  to  prove,  further,  that  suffering  falls  on  the  shoul¬ 
ders  and  at  the  points  where  it  is  likely  to  be  made  the 
best  use  of  and  produce  the  best  results.  All  that  you 
have  said  on  the  first  point  only  serves  to  increase  the 
difficulty  so  long  as  the  second  point  remains  in  doubt. 
Let  it  be  granted  that  villains  like  Iago  must  exist 
from  time  to  time  if  there  is  to  be  a  moral  universe. 
But  why  in  the  name  of  justice  should  Desdemona  be 


104 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


picked  out,  of  all  women  on  the  earth,  to  suffer  for 
Iago’s  villainy?  Why  Desdemona?  Why  you f  Why 
me — and  not  somebody  else?  Answer  that  if  you  can. 

On  all  sides,  therefore,  we  see  the  futility  of  attempt¬ 
ing  to  handle  the  problem  of  evil  by  the  method  of 
seeking  relief  from  it.  Whichever  variety  of  that 
method  we  adopt,  a  sure  disappointment  awaits  us  at 
the  end  of  our  labors.  And  it  is  a  disappointment  we 
deserve.  For  that  in  us  which  asks  for  relief  is  not  the 
noblest  part  of  us — not  by  any  means.  I  will  not  say 
it  is  the  basest  part  of  us,  but  its  face  is  certainly  turned 
in  that  direction.  A  little  more  and  it  would  become 
cowardice.  “Skulkers,”  said  Nelson,  “always  get  the 
worst  of  it” — words  that  might  be  written  over  many 
an  attempted  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil. 

In  this  chapter,  then,  I  am  going  to  address  myself 
not  to  those  who  ask  for  relief,  but  to  those  who  ask 
for  power ,  to  those  who  are  willing,  in  Von  Hugel’s 
words,  “to  grasp  life’s  nettle,”  and  are  anxious  to  grasp 
it  more  firmly. 

There  are  many  questions  in  philosophy  which  begin 
to  answer  themselves  as  soon  as  we  understand  our  own 
meaning  in  asking  them.  The  question  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter  is  one  of  them.  Carefully  examined,  the 
question  itself  will  be  found  to  furnish  a  clue  to  the 
right  answer. 

To  begin  with,  how  comes  it  to  pass  that  we  have 
any  notion  of  evil  at  all?  Whatever  else  we  may  mean 
when  we  use  the  word  “evil,”  or  entertain  the  thought 
of  it,  our  intention  is  clearly  to  indicate  something 
which  stands  as  the  opposite  to  “good.”  Suppose,  then, 
we  were  living  in  a  universe  which  contained  nothing 
but  “good.”  I  cannot  see  how  in  such  a  universe  the 
notion  of  evil  could  ever  come  into  existence,  any  more 
than  I  can  see  how  in  a  universe  where  everything 
tasted  sweet  we  could  ever  get  the  notion  of  something 
else  that  tasted  bitter.  Do  you  say  that,  in  such  a 
universe,  the  notion  of  evil,  or  of  bitter,  might  arise 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 


105 


as  an  illusion.  I  cannot  see  how  or  why  it  could.  In 
a  universe  where  everything  we  experienced  was  ac¬ 
tually  good  or  sweet,  what  reason  could  any  of  us  have 
for  thinking,  even  falsely,  that  something  else  was  evil 
or  bitter?  Let  us  remember,  too,  that  the  notion  of 
evil,  even  if  it  be  an  illusion,  is  not  an  exceptional  illu¬ 
sion,  like  color-blindness  or  a  tendency  to  see  double. 
It  is  an  illusion  which  all  men  have.  But  in  a  universe 
which  contained  nothing  but  good  I  cannot  see  why 
anybody  should  have  it.  In  such  a  universe  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  illusion  would  remain  quite  unaccounted 
for. 

Besides,  we  don’t  get  rid  of  evil  by  proving  the  notion 
of  it  to  be  an  illusion :  we  merely  reinstate  it  in  another 
form.  The  evil  is  now  the  illusion  itself.  We  don’t 
improve  the  world  by  making  out  that  all  men  are  fools 
or  self-deceived;  we  make  it  worse  rather  than  better. 
For  my  own  part,  I  would  rather  live  in  a  world  which 
contained  real  evils  which  all  men  recognize  than  in 
another  where  all  men  were  such  imbeciles  as  to  believe 
in  the  existence  of  evil  which  has  no  existence  at  all. 

The  idea,  then,  of  a  world  which  contains  nothing 
but  good  while  at  the  same  time  the  human  mind 
(which  after  all  belongs  to  the  world)  is  so  perverse  or 
stupid  or  mistaken  or  blind  or  self-deceived  as  to  think 
that  evil  exists,  is  a  flat  contradiction  in  terms.  All 
that  this  argument  does  is  to  exalt  the  goodness  of  the 
world  at  the  expense  of  the  sanity  of  its  inhabitants. 
It  transfers  evil  from  its  seat  in  objective  fact  to  an¬ 
other  and  more  dangerous  seat  in  the  human  mind, 
that,  namely,  where  the  aforesaid  perversity  and  self- 
deception  hold  their  sway,  thereby  endowing  evil  with 
a  more  odious  and  contemptible  form  than  any  it  had 
before  a  false  philosophy  began  her  task  of  whitewash¬ 
ing  the  universe.  A  better  argument  for  the  existence 
of  the  devil  could  hardly  be  conceived.  In  a  world 
where  no  real  evil  exists,  who  but  the  devil  could  have 
created  the  illusion  of  evil  and  implanted  it  in  every 


106 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


human  mind?  Or,  phrasing  it  a  little  more  mildly, 
what  shall  we  say  to  a  universe  which  contains  no  real 
evil  but  has  yet  evolved  a  type  of  intelligence,  like 
yours  and  mine,  to  which  evil  presents  itself  as  a 
reality?  A  mad  world,  at  the  very  best. 

Bearing  these  things  in  mind,  we  now  see  that  the 
question,  How  shall  we  think  of  evil?  begins  to  answer 
itself  as  soon  as  it  is  asked.  Whatever  else  we  may 
think  of  evil,  it  is  certain  that  we  shall  never  succeed 
in  thinking  well  of  it.  We  shall  never  reach  the  point 
of  being  able  to  say  of  evil  “it  is  good  for  that  thing 
to  be  here.”  For  the  moment  we  think  thus  of  any¬ 
thing  it  is  abundantly  clear  that  we  are  not  thinking 
of  evil,  but  of  good.  So  long  as  we  continue  to  think  of 
evil,  we  must  think  ill  of  it.  Suppose  a  philosopher 
should  prove  to  us  that  evil  is  something  which  doesn’t 
exist,  and  that  this,  therefore,  is  the  right  way  to  think 
about  it.  But  in  thinking  of  evil  as  something  which 
doesn’t  exist,  we  are  not  thinking  of  evil  at  all.  We  are 
thinking  of  nothing.  Or  suppose  he  should  prove  that 
evil  is  ultimately  beneficial,  and  that  we  ought  to  think 
of  it  as  such.  Is  it  not  clear  again  that  in  thinking  of 
what  is  ultimately  beneficial  we  have  ceased  to  think  of 
evil  and  begun  to  think  of  good? 

All  such  attempts  to  make  us  think  well  of  evil  are 
tantamount  to  telling  us  there  is  no  evil  to  think  about. 
They  are  answers  to  quite  a  different  question  from 
that  which  stands  at  the  head  of  this  chapter  and  are 
therefore  chargeable  with  the  logical  fallacy  known  as 
ignoratio  elenchi.  Our  question  is,  How  shall  we  think 
about  evil?  The  question  they  deal  with  is,  Shall  we 
think  about  evil  at  all?  And  the  answer  they  give  is, 
“No,  because  there  is  no  evil  to  think  about.”  If  these 
philosophers  would  stick  to  the  original  question  in¬ 
stead  of  quietly  substituting  another — a  common  trick 
when  the  problem  of  evil  is  in  question — they  would  see 
that  if  we  are  to  think  of  evil  at  all  we  must  think  ill  of 
it,  we  must  think  of  it  as  something  which  is  there  but 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 


107 


has  no  right  to  be  there.  Obviously  our  question,  How 
shall  we  think  of  evil?  has  no  sense  or  meaning  unless 
we  assume  from  the  outset  that  there  is  some  evil  to 
think  of,  and  a  philosophy  which  tells  us  there  is  none 
is  simply  beside  the  mark.  It  is  as  though  a  man  with  a 
broken  leg  were  to  go  to  a  doctor  to  get  it  mended  and 
were  to  be  told  by  him  that  there  are  no  such  things 
as  legs  either  to  break  or  mend,  and  that  those  who 
think  they  exist  are  the  victims  of  illusion.  This  might 
be  metaphysically  true,  but  it  would  not  answer  the 
question  that  brought  the  patient  to  the  consulting 
room. 

In  this  chapter,  therefore,  I  shall  stick  to  the  original 
question,  How  shall  we  think  of  evil? — a  question,  I 
repeat,  which  there  is  no  point  in  asking  unless  we 
assume  that  something  exists,  called  evil,  for  us  to 
think  of.  If  we  deny  that,  we  ought  to  frame  our  ques¬ 
tion  differently.  But  let  us  see  what  we  can  make 
of  it  as  actually  framed. 

Before  attempting  to  answer  the  question,  we  must 
get  a  firm  grip  on  what  we  mean  by  it;  otherwise  we 
may  fall  into  the  error  of  the  philosophers  I  have  just 
been  citing,  who  answer  another  question  altogether. 

Now,  of  two  things,  one.  When  the  question  is 
raised,  How  shall  we  think  of  evil?  either  the  questioner 
knows  what  he  means  by  it  or  he  does  not.  We  will 
consider  the  second  case  first. 

The  case  of  a  person  raising  this  question  without 
knowing  what  he  means  by  it  is  a  little  difficult  to 
conceive.  We  can  only  do  it  by  using  our  imaginations. 
He  would  have  to  be  a  person,  or  being,  who  had  lived 
hitherto  in  a  state  of  unalloyed  bliss,  who  had  never 
experienced  evil  himself  either  directly  or  sympatheti¬ 
cally,  and  had  only  heard  evil  spoken  of  as  something 
experienced  by  other  people.  Our  legendary  forefather, 
Adam,  as  he  was  before  the  Fall,  would  be  the  kind  of  ' 
person  we  are  in  quest  of.  In  Milton’s  Paradise  Lost 
we  have  the  curious  spectacle  of  the  angel  Raphael 


108 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


instructing  Adam  how  to  think  of  evil  at  a  moment  of 
Adam’s  life  when  as  yet  he  had  no  experience  of  it,  and 
was  therefore  incapable  of  raising  our  question  with  any 
knowledge  of  what  it  means.  We  need  not  grudge  Mil- 
ton  the  large  poetic  license  of  which  he  here  makes  use, 
though  it  must  be  pointed  out,  as  a  plain  matter  of 
psychology,  that  to  explain  evil  to  a  person  like  Adam, 
who  had  never  experienced  it,  is  as  impossible  as  it 
would  be  to  teach  the  infinitesimal  calculus  to  a  horse, 
or  to  awaken  the  sense  of  beauty  in  a  jellyfish.  The 
only  way  in  which  Raphael  could  have  introduced  the 
meaning  of  evil  into  Adam’s  mind  would  have  been  by 
giving  him  a  taste  of  it  there  and  then,  in  his  body  or 
in  his  soul.  Short  of  that,  all  instructions  how  to  think 
about  evil  would  have  been  thrown  away  on  Adam  for 
the  simple  reason  that  as  yet  he  knew  of  no  evil  to 
think  about.  Any  questions  that  Adam  could  raise 
about  evil,  at  that  stage,  could  be  nothing  more  than 
mere  questions  about  the  word .  In  no  other  sense 
would  Adam  know  what  he  meant  by  asking,  “How 
shall  I  think  about  evil?”  In  no  other  sense  could  there 
be  any  significance  for  him  in  the  answers  given  by 
Raphael.  Terrors,  threats,  and  appalling  pictures 
would  be  alike  in  vain,  since  Adam,  having  never  ex¬ 
perienced  anything  of  that  nature,  would  lack  the 
means  of  interpreting  Raphael’s  words  and  would  be 
unable  to  recognize  what  he  was  talking  about.  What 
is  the  use  of  telling  a  man  that  so  and  so  will  hurt  him, 
when  as  yet  he  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  hurt? 
From  first  to  last  the  whole  performance,  both  question 
and  answer,  would  be  a  mere  verbal  exercise ;  in  which 
respect,  I  may  add,  it  would  resemble  many  of  the 
attempts  that  have  been  made  in  more  recent  times  to 
solve  the  problem  of  evil. 

I  now  turn  to  the  second  case,  that  of  the  person  who 
knows  what  he  means  when  he  raises  our  question — the 
case,  I  imagine,  of  every-one  who  may  chance  to  read 
these  pages.  What  I  have  next  to  point  out  is  that  in 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 


109 


knowing  what  we  mean  by  the  question  we  have  al¬ 
ready  gone  most  of  the  way  toward  answering  it.  Un¬ 
less  we  had  already  thought,  and  thought  a  great  deal, 
about  evil,  and  come  to  certain  very  definite  judgments 
about  its  nature,  we  should  not  know  what  we  meant 
by  asking,  How  shall  we  think  about  evil?  All  that 
our  thought  about  evil  now  stands  in  need  of  is  a  little 
clearing  up;  but  the  major  part  of  our  thinking  has,  I 
repeat,  already  been  done  before  we  come  to  the  point 
of  asking  our  question — otherwise  we  could  never  ask 
it  intelligently,  as  every  reader  of  this  chapter  is  doing. 

Here  I  would  beg  the  reader  to  cross-examine  him¬ 
self,  and  to  be  very  candid  with  himself  in  the  answers 
he  gives.  Let  us  imagine  for  the  moment — I  hope  he 
will  pardon  me  for  putting  it  in  this  way — that  he  is  the 
pupil  and  I  am  the  instructor.  He  is  anxious  to  know 
how  he  is  to  think  about  evil,  and  he  has  come  to  me 
in  the  hope  that  I  can  tell  him.  Why,  I  would  ask  him, 
is  he  anxious  about  this  matter?  Why  is  he  interested 
in  it,  and  interested  to  the  extent  of  finding  it  worth  his 
while  to  read  this  rather  difficult  chapter?  Has  he  not, 
before  propounding  his  question  to  me,  already  thought 
about  evil  a  great  deal  and  come  to  the  definite  valua¬ 
tion  of  evil  as  a  mighty  unpleasant  factor  in  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  in  his  own  experience?  Has  he  not  already 
learned  to  dislike  it,  to  wish  it  away,  and  to  take  up  a 
positive  attitude  of  hostility  toward  it?  If  my  answer 
to  his  present  question  were  to  take  the  form  of  telling 
him  so  to  think  of  evil  as  to  make  him  wish  for  more 
of  it  in  his  own  and  other  people’s  lives,  would  he  nqt 
promptly  throw  this  book  into  the  fire?  In  giving 
the  name  “evil”  to  the  thing  he  wants  me  to  help  him 
in  thinking  about,  has  he  not  already  thought  of  it  as 
something  of  which  the  less  we  have  in  life  the  better? 
Is  not  the  question  between  us  already  prejudged  to 
that  extent?  I  put  it  to  him  that  it  is.  I  put  it  to  him 
that  his  attitude  toward  evil  is  neither  neutral  nor  in¬ 
different  nor  disinterested  nor  impartial.  I  put  it  to 


110 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


him  that  he  has  already  made  up  his  mind  and  done 
his  thinking  to  this  extent — that  he  is  determined  to 
think  ill  of  evil  and  not  to  think  well.  Is  there  any 
reader  of  these  pages  who  is  willing  to  be  persuaded  by 
me  to  think  well  of  evil,  and  would  not  despise  me  as  a 
writer  of  nonsense  if  I  made  the  attempt?  I  say  with¬ 
out  hesitation — there  is  no  such  reader.  To  that  extent 
his  mind  is  already  made  up. 

I  suggest,  then,  to  any  person  who  may  come  to  me 
(in  my  assumed  role  of  instructor)  for  further  light 
upon  how  he  shall  think  of  evil :  ( 1 )  that  unlike  Adam 
before  the  Fall  he  knows  what  he  means  by  evil;  (2) 
that  his  knowing  what  it  means  proves  him  to  have 
begun  his  thinking  about  it  before  he  came  to  me; 
(3)  that  he  has  thought  ill  of  it;  (4)  that  he  is  deter¬ 
mined  not  to  be  persuaded,  by  me  or  anybody  else,  to 
think  well  of  it;  (5)  that  the  only  further  thinking 
about  it  which  he  would  accept  from  me  as  valid  must 
be  continuous  with  that  already  begun,  and  to  the 
same  effect. 

I  suggest,  further,  that  even  if  I  were  to  succeed,  per 
impossibile,  in  persuading  him  to  think  well  of  evil,  or 
to  think  it  away,  the  burden  and  mystery  of  evil  would 
not  be  lightened  in  the  least.  What  would  be  gained 
by  a  philosophy  which  taught  mankind  to  look  with 
complaisance  on  the  villainy  of  Iago,  with  satisfaction 
on  the  treachery  of  Judas,  with  indifference  on  the  suf¬ 
ferings  of  the  Great  War?  Would  it  not  be  a  damnable 
philosophy?  Would  not  the  complaisance,  the  satis¬ 
faction,  the  indifference  it  engendered  in  the  presence 
of  these  things  be  a  new  abomination  greater  than  any 
of  those  it  affected  to  displace?  Would  not  the  man 
who  looked  upon  Iago  with  complaisance  be  a  blacker 
villain  than  Iago  himself?  Who  but  a  traitor  double- 
dyed  could  be  satisfied,  even  philosophically,  with  the 
treachery  of  Judas?  And  is  not  a  fresh  horror  added 
to  the  sufferings  of  the  Great  War  when  we  introduce 
on  the  scene  a  race  of  philosophers  who  have  argued 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL?  Ill 

themselves  into  regarding  those  sufferings  with  in¬ 
difference? 

Does  any  of  us  really  wish  for  an  “explanation”  of 
evil  which  would  make  him  content  with  its  presence 
in  the  universe?  Does  any  of  us  want  to  think  well  of 
evil  even  in  that  limited  sense?  Would  not  such  an 
explanation,  if  offered,  be  instantly  rejected  by  every 
one  of  us  as  beneath  his  dignity  as  a  man,  nay,  as  an 
outrage  to  his  self-respect?  The  only  being  I  can 
imagine  who  would  consent  to  think  well  of  evil  is  the 
devil.  Goethe’s  Faust ,  it  may  be  remembered,  largely 
turns  on  the  ability  of  the  devil  to  whitewash  evil  or 
to  argue  it  out  of  existence.  Many  great  philosophers 
have  done  the  same  thing,  not  perceiving  that  such 
arguments  merely  serve  to  produce  a  devil’s  mind  in 
those  who  listen  to  them,  thereby  reinstating  evil  in 
a  worse  form  than  ever.  Of  all  “solutions”  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  evil  that  given  by  Mephistopheles,  and  by  his 
disciples  among  the  philosophers,  is  by  far  the  easiest. 
The  trouble  is  that  the  “solution”  itself  becomes  a 
greater  evil  than  the  evil  it  professes  to  “solve.”  For 
my  own  part,  I  refuse  to  follow  the  meditated  guile  of 
Mephistopheles.  His  arguments,  indeed,  are  fascinat¬ 
ing  enough  till  we  come  to  the  conclusion.  But  when 
that  is  reached  every  decent  mind  rejects  it  with  horror, 
and  with  indignation  at  the  foul  trap  into  which  he 
has  been  led. 

For  minds  such  as  ours,  it  is  no  more  possible  to 
think  well  of  evil  than  it  is  to  think  ill  of  good.  Think¬ 
ing  evil  away  is  no  better,  since  we  inevitably  find  that, 
in  doing  so,  we  think  good  away  at  the  same  time. 
Which  won’t  help  us  much ! 

I  am  now  in  a  position  to  give  a  general  answer  to  the 
question  at  the  head  of  this  chapter.  To  the  reader 
who  asks  me,  How  shall  I  think  of  evil?  my  general 
answer  is,  Continue  to  think  of  it  as  you  thought  of 
it  up  to  the  moment  when  you  felt  prompted  to  ask 
your  question.  You  thought  of  it  (did  you  not?)  as  an 


112 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


obstacle  of  some  kind — an  obstacle  to  your  faith  in 
God,  an  obstacle  to  your  peace  of  mind.  Continue, 
then,  to  think  of  it  as  an  obstacle.  You  thought  ill  of 
it  before.  Think  worse  of  it  now.  Don’t  expect  one 
word  from  me  which  will  make  you  think  better  of  it. 
Don’t  expect  me  to  lift  my  little  finger  to  remove  the 
obstacle  from  your  path.  If  you  saw  the  obstacle 
dimly  before,  I  would  help  you,  now,  to  see  it  more 
clearly,  to  realize  what  a  tremendous  obstacle  it  is.  I 
have  not  the  faintest  desire  or  intention  to  “reconcile” 
you  to  the  villainy  of  Iago,  to  the  treachery  of  Judas, 
to  the  sufferings  of  the  Great  War.  On  the  contrary, 
my  desire  and  intention  are  to  deepen  your  opposition 
to  all  three.  Instead,  therefore,  of  trying  to  ease  you 
of  your  consciousness  of  evil  I  would  sharpen  it  to  the 
very  uttermost.  I  would  offer  you,  at  this  point,  not 
peace  but  a  sword.  If  you  want  peace  with  evil  I  am 
not  your  man.  Go  to  some  other  “instructor.”  You 
will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  one — in  the  school  of 
Mephistopheles.  You  had  declared  war  upon  evil 
before  you  came  to  me.  Stand  firm  to  that  declaration 
and  sharpen  your  sword. 

Such  is  my  general  answer  to  the  question.  Before 
making  it  more  specific  I  must  ask  patience  for  a  short 
digression  in  psychology. 

There  was  a  time  when  psychologists  were  in  the 
habit  of  drawing  a  false  distinction  between  the  intelli¬ 
gence  and  the  will.  The  intelligence  was  treated  as  a 
faculty  which  passively  accepts  what  is  given  it  to 
know,  which  knows  things  by  simply  finding  them 
there,  and  reproducing  them  or  reflecting  them,  as  they 
might  be  reflected  by  a  looking-glass.  The  will  was 
treated  as  a  separate  and  mysterious  faculty  which  does 
not  come  into  operation  until  a  later  stage,  when  we 
begin  to  make  up  our  minds  how  we  are  going  to  act 
among  the  objects  and  ideas  which  our  intelligence  has 
passively  received  or  found  existing  in  front  of  it.  In 
other  words,  the  mind  was  treated  as  one  thing  and 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL?  113 

the  process  of  making  up  our  minds  (will)  was  treated 
as  another. 

Most  unfortunately  this  false  distinction  has  entered 
into  popular  thought  and  into  popular  speech.  When 
the  man  in  the  street  (who  is  an  excellent  fellow  but  a 
bad  psychologist)  gets  talking  about  the  things  of  the 
mind,  his  first  mistake  is,  almost  invariably,  to  speak 
of  his  intelligence  as  though  it  were  one  thing  and  of 
his  will  as  though  it  were  another,  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  the  two  words  leading  him  to  think  that  he  is 
talking  of  two  different  things.  The  mistake  comes  out 
in  many  forms  but  never  so  plainly  as  when  he  turns  to 
the  meaning,  or  the  problem,  of  evil.  He  insists  on 
treating  evil  as  though  it  were  something  which  his 
intelligence  has  found  in  existence  and  passively  ac¬ 
cepted  as  there;  and  he  thinks  that  the  problem  of 
what  his  will  has  to  do  with  evil  is  a  separate  problem, 
coming  in  afterward.  In  all  this  he  fails  to  perceive 
that  the  meaning  of  evil,  the  very  essence  of  it,  lies  in 
the  attitude  which  his  will  has  already  taken  up  toward 
it.  He  fails  to  perceive  that  the  very  act  of  thinking 
about  evil  (intelligence)  is  also  the  act  of  making  up 
his  mind  (willing)  to  oppose  it.  If  the  reader  doubts 
this,  or  finds  it  difficult  to  follow,  let  him  try  an 
experiment. 

Let  him  try  to  think  (intelligence)  of  some  evil  with¬ 
out  at  the  same  time  taking  up  (will)  a  definite  attitude 
of  opposition  toward  it.  He  will  find  that  the  evil 
he  is  thinking  of  is  evil  precisely  so  far  as  he  wills  to 
oppose  it,  as  his  mind  is  made  up  against  it.  When,  for 
example,  he  calls  the  villainy  of  Iago  an  evil,  he  means 
by  that  that  the  villainy  of  Iago  is  the  kind  of  thing  he 
is  out  against.  Think  of  Iago’s  conduct  as  something 
that  you  are  not  out  against  and  where  would  be  the 
point  of  calling  it  villainy?  In  recognizing  it  as  vil¬ 
lainy  you  take  an  attitude  toward  it,  condemn  it, 
throw  your  weight  against  it,  mentally  strike  at  it  with 
all  your  might,  saying  to  yourself,  as  Lincoln  said  when 


114 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


he  saw  slavery,  “That  thing  I  mean  to  hit,  and  to  hit 
hard.”  Why  else  should  you  call  it  “evil”  or  “villainy”? 
Unless  you  mean  to  hit  it,  the  thing  for  you  does  not 
mean  evil  at  all.  The  clearness  with  which  you  see  it 
as  evil  and  the  hardness  with  which  you  mean  to  hit  it 
are  the  same  thing.  The  harder  you  mean  to  hit  it 
the  clearer  you  will  see  it.  The  clearer  you  see  it  the 
harder  you  mean  to  hit  it.  Obviously  your  will  and 
intelligence,  at  this  point,  are  two  different  names  for 
a  single  mental  act. 

Happily  this  false  distinction  between  intelligence 
and  will  has  now  been  abandoned  by  every  psychologist 
who  is  worth  either  his  salt  or  his  salary.  Thanks 
largely  to  the  labors  of  William  James,  we  now  know 
that  our  intelligence  is  purposive  at  every  moment  of 
its  action.  The  old  myth  which  represented  the  human 
mind  as  “a  disinterested  and  impartial  spectator  of  the 
universe,”  with  a  mysterious  extra  called  the  “will” 
tucked  into  its  structure,  has  been  finally  exploded.  All 
mind  is  a  process  of  making  up  the  mind.  The  will  is 
all-pervasive,  part  and  parcel  of  every  mental  act.  To 
know  anything  is  to  make  up  our  mind  about  that 
thing;  to  value  it;  to  determine  what  it  is  good  for  and 
what  we  are  going  to  make  of  it.  On  the  table  before 
me  at  this  moment  stands  a  bottle  of  fluid  which  I 
recognize  as  ink.  But  within  my  recognition  of  it  as 
ink  lies  the  purpose,  the  determination,  the  will  to 
use  it  for  writing  and  not  for  drinking — and  there  lies 
the  true  meaning  of  the  ink.  Similarly,  in  the  universe 
there  is  something  I  recognize  as  evil.  But  within  my 
recognition  of  it  as  evil  lies  the  will  to  hit  it  and  not  to 
tolerate  it.  And  there  lies  the  true  meaning  of  the  evil. 
Show  me  an  evil  which  I  don’t  want  to  hit  and  am 
prepared  to  tolerate,  and  you  show  me  something 
which,  for  me,  is  not  evil. 

This  being  admitted,  we  now  come  to  a  highly  critical 
point  of  the  discussion. 

There  can  be  no  honest  dealing  with  evil  which  is 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 


115 


not  based  on  a  frank  recognition  of  its  reality.  In¬ 
genious  dealing  there  may  be;  subtle  dealing  there 
may  be;  sophistical  dealing  there  may  be — but  honest 
dealing,  no! 

Many  persons  will  find  this  statement  formidable, 
forbidding,  depressing.  They  embarked  on  this  chap¬ 
ter,  perhaps,  in  the  hope  of  finding  in  it  some  argument 
which  would  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  evil  is  not  as 
bad  as  it  seems,  and  they  will  not  take  kindly  to  an 
“instructor”  who  tells  them  that  evil  is  worse  than  it 
seems;  that  evil  is  not  only  real  but  that  the  amount 
of  it  in  the  world  is  greater,  and  the  malignancy  of  it 
more  terrible,  and  the  distribution  of  it  more  mys¬ 
terious  than  any  of  us  have  supposed. 

But  now  I  am  in  a  position  to  add  something  which 
I  hope  will  relieve  the  gloom  of  this  impression.  When¬ 
ever  we  are  oppressed  by  the  reality  of  evil  as  we  see 
it  in  the  world,  let  us  turn  our  attention  round  to  that 
in  ourselves  which,  in  recognizing  evil  jor  what  it  is,  is 
at  the  same  time  resolved  to  hit  evil  and  to  hit  with  all 
our  might.  Let  us  reflect  that  the  same  universe  which 
has  produced  the  villainy  of  Iago,  the  treachery  of 
Judas,  and  the  sufferings  of  the  Great  War,  has  also 
produced  that  spirit  in  ourselves  which,  when  con¬ 
fronted  by  such  things,  cries  out,  in  the  passion  of  the 
will,  “This  must  be  stopped  and,  by  Heaven,  I  am  here 
to  stop  it !  ”  See  the  purposiveness  of  your  intelligence ! 
Catch  your  mind  in  the  very  act  of  making  itself  up  at 
this  point.  Observe  how  the  purpose  which  finds  ex¬ 
pression  in  this  cry  is  interwoven  with  the  very  stuff 
of  which  you  are  made,  or  rather  of  which  the  universe 
has  made  you.  In  discovering  the  reality  of  evil,  have 
you  not  discovered  at  the  same  time  the  dignity  and 
power  of  your  own  soul,  to  which  evil  stands  opposed? 
There  is  a  double  revelation:  on  the  one  side,  of  the 
evil  which  you  recognize ;  on  the  other  side,  of  that  in 
you  which  recognizes  evil  and,  in  recognizing,  condemns 
it.  In  one  and  the  same  vision  there  is  shown  you 


116 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


the  tremendous  obstacle  you  have  to  overcome  and  the 
power  within  yourself  to  overcome  it.  What  more  in¬ 
spiring  vision  could  you  have,  what  clearer  proof  that 
your  nature  is  divine?  A  new  sharpness  to  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  evil,  and  therewith  a  new  sharpness  to  the 
consciousness  of  something  yet  greater  in  yourself, 
standing  opposed  to  the  evil  you  see — such  is  the  con¬ 
tribution  of  a  true  religion  to  the  solution  of  this  great 
problem. 


In  the  course  of  this  psychological  digression  we  have 
been  approaching  a  more  precise  answer  to  the  ques¬ 
tion,  How  shall  we  think  of  evil?  We  have  seen  that, 
in  this  matter,  thinking  and  willing  go  together.  To 
suppose  that  we  first  take  an  impartial  and  disinter¬ 
ested  view  of  evil  and  then  make  up  our  minds  how  we 
will  act  in  regard  to  it,  is  to  misconceive  the  psychologi¬ 
cal  situation.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  thinking  about 
evil  in  an  impartial  and  disinterested  frame  of  mind. 
Whoever  thinks  about  evil  at  all  takes  a  definite  side 
against  it  and  cannot,  by  any  possibility,  think  about 
it  on  any  other  terms. 

Do  you  want,  then,  to  think  more  clearly  about  evil 
than  you  have  done  heretofore,  and  do  you  read  this 
chapter  in  the  hope  that  it  will  help  you  to  that  end? 
Well,  there  is  only  one  way  by  which  you  can  attain 
that  greater  clearness  of  thought  you  are  in  search  of, 
namely,  by  strengthening  your  will  to  oppose  evil  when¬ 
ever  it  confronts  you.  Think  of  evil  as  that  which  de¬ 
mands  your  opposition  and  you  will  think  of  it  aright. 
Never  think  of  it  by  itself ,  but  always  think  of  it  in 
closest  connection  with  that  divine  element  in  your 
own  nature  which  stands  opposed  to  it  and  is  more 
than  a  match  for  it.  When  evil  is  in  question,  clearness 
of  thought  and  resolution  of  will  are  not  two  things 
but  one.  Let  your  thought  follow  your  will;  let  your 
will  be  your  thought  and  your  thought  your  will.  Let 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  EVIL? 


117 


each  be  the  exact  echo  of  the  other.  Think  of  the 
villainy  of  Iago  as  villainy;  that  is,  as  indicating  a 
type  of  character  which  you  are  resolved  is  not  to  be 
suffered  on  this  planet.  Think  of  the  treachery  of 
Judas  as  treachery ;  that  is,  as  a  crime  which  thirty 
million  pieces  of  silver  would  not  induce  you  to  repeat 
against  the  humblest  of  your  fellow-men.  Think  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  Great  War  as  something  which  must 
not  occur  again,  and  the  repetition  of  which  you,  so 
far  as  in  you  lies,  mean  to  prevent.  In  short,  think  of 
all  evils  precisely  as  you  would  act  if  you  found  your¬ 
self  in  their  presence.  Let  your  thought  be  the  action 
of  your  will  translated  into  terms  of  the  intelligence, 
and  let  your  will  be  your  thought  translated  into  terms 
of  action. 

Any  other  mode  of  thinking  about  evil  you  may 
choose  to  adopt — and  many  are  offered  you — will  lead 
sooner  or  later  to  the  discovery  that  you  are  not  think¬ 
ing  about  evil  at  all,  but  have  fallen  a  victim  to  the 
most  nefarious  of  all  the  tricks  which  Mephistopheles 
plays  on  those  who  are  foolish  enough  to  listen  to  his 
sophistries. 

When  thou  hearest  the  fool  rejoicing,  and  he  saith,  “It  is  over 
and  past, 

And  the  wrong  was  better  than  right,  and  hate  turns  into  love 
at  the  last. 

And  we  strove  for  nothing  at  all,  and  the  Gods  are  fallen  asleep, 
For  so  good  is  the  world  agrowing,  that  the  evil  good  shall  reap,” 
Then  loosen  thy  sword  in  the  scabbard  and  settle  the  helm  on 
thy  head, 

For  men  betrayed  are  mighty,  and  great  are  the  wrongfully 
dead.1 

Where  will  you  find  a  more  poignant  answer  to  the 
question,  How  shall  we  think  of  evil?  or  a  more  trench¬ 
ant  stroke  at  the  word- juggling  in  which  this  great 
question  has  been  involved?  There  are  people  who 
still  imagine  that  something  is  to  be  gained  by  “recon- 

^William  Morris,  Song  of  Sigurd  the  Volsung. 


118 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


ciling  the  existence  of  evil  with  the  goodness  of  God.” 
For  my  part,  I  flatly  refuse  to  recognize  as  God  any 
being  with  whose  “goodness”  the  existence  of  evil  can 
be  “reconciled.”  Such  reconciliations  can  have  but  one 
effect — to  dishonor  God  and  to  scandalize  men  whom 
He  has  made  in  His  Image.  Let  us  think  rather  of  evil 
as  that  with  which  no  decent  soul  can  ever  be  recon¬ 
ciled,  and  in  our  refusal  to  be  reconciled  with  it  let 
us  learn  to  find  a  close  point  of  contact  between  our 
own  nature  and  God's. 


CHAPTER  IX 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  HUMAN 

PROGRESS? 

By  Eugene  W.  Lyman 

Is  human  progress  something  that  the  Christian 
should  welcome  or  discourage?  Should  he  actively  pro¬ 
mote  it,  or  should  he  be  simply  indifferent  to  it?  As 
men  become  wiser,  do  they  also  become  better?  As 
they  grow  in  skill,  do  they  grow  in  grace?  Does  mak¬ 
ing  things  beautiful  tend  toward  creating  the  beauty 
of  holiness?  Does  education  aid  in  salvation?  Does 
the  increase  of  intelligence  foster  the  life  of  faith?  Does 
the  advancement  of  civilization  promote  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God? 

Such  are  some  of  the  questions  that  Christians  have 
often  asked  down  through  the  centuries,  and  many 
Christians  ask  them  no  less  seriously  to-day.  The 
Christian  feels  that  in  his  religious  experience  he  has 
found  something  of  supreme  worth,  and  he  sometimes 
suspects  that  this  priceless  thing  is  menaced  by  what 
men  commonly  call  progress.  When  this  suspicion 
arises,  then  the  Christian  is  apt  to  take  one  of  two 
attitudes.  First,  he  may  repudiate  all  that  goes  under 
the  name  of  progress  as  being  essentially  worldly.  In 
this  case,  either  he  will  look  for  spiritual  blessings  to 
come  in  an  entirely  supernatural  way — as  a  miracle 
from  God;  or  else  he  will  become  more  or  less  ascetic — 
seeking  to  be  unworldly  by  disciplining,  or  even  sup¬ 
pressing,  his  natural  desires,  so  that  he  will  not  yearn 
for  earthly  things. 


119 


120 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


Or,  secondly,  the  Christian  may  adopt  a  compromise 
attitude,  regarding  the  things  that  belong  to  human 
progress  as  practically  necessary  and  as  good  in  their 
way,  but  as  having  nothing  to  do  with  the  Christian 
experience.  In  this  case,  he  will  tend  to  divide  his  life 
into  two  water-tight  compartments,  putting  worldly 
goods  into  the  one  and  spiritual  goods  into  the  other. 
And  he  will  use  considerable  care  not  to  let  the  two 
kinds  of  goods  get  mixed  up — just  as  a  business  man 
would  take  pains  to  keep  his  business  accounts  and 
his  personal  accounts  quite  separate  from  each  other. 

There  is,  then,  a  well-defined  tendency  among  certain 
Christians  to  regard  their  religious  experience  and  hu¬ 
man  progress  as  being  somehow  alien  to  each  other. 
And  it  should  be  noted  that  this  view  is  shared,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  some  of  the  believers  in  progress  who 
are  not  professedly  Christians.  In  this  crisis  of  the 
world’s  history,  when  civilization  has  been  shaken  to 
its  foundations,  such  persons  often  ask  whether  Chris¬ 
tianity  can  be  counted  on  as  a  positive  force  to  help  re¬ 
establish  progress.  They  feel  that  Christians  are  prone 
to  define  their  religious  experience  and  ideals  in  such 
a  way  as  to  render  them  of  no  value  for  actual  human 
progress,  if  not  a  positive  hindrance  to  it.  They  con¬ 
sider  that  the  Christian  experience  tends  to  disconnect 
men  from  the  cause  of  progress,  and  to  draft  off  into 
other  channels  energies  which  that  cause  sorely  needs. 
And  they  are  doubtful  whether  Christianity  knows  how 
to  attack  the  major  evils  of  our  time. 

Thus,  from  many  who  are  professedly  Christian,  and 
from  many  who  are  not,  come  similar  judgments  about 
the  relation  between  Christianity  and  human  progress. 
This  fact  brings  before  us  a  serious  problem.  For  on 
the  other  hand,  not  a  few  Christians  regard  Christianity 
as  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  the  progress  that  has 
been  made  since  the  Christian  era  began  and  as  the 
best  hope  of  mankind  for  future  progress.  Where  such 
conflicting  views  exist  in  regard  to  a  fundamental  mat- 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  121 


ter  there  is  evidently  need  for  careful  and  earnest 
thought.  Cross-currents  make  choppy  seas.  When 
earnest  men  work  at  cross-purposes  spiritual  interests 
make  little  headway,  and  the  forces  of  disorder  and 
evil  become  turbulent.  Such  situations  often  can  be 
traced  back  to  some  confusion  of  thinking.  Different 
meanings  may  have  been  assigned  to  the  same  terms, 
or  the  meanings  themselves  may  be  unclear.  The  ques¬ 
tion,  then,  How  shall  we  think  of  human  progress? 
is  of  vital  concern  to  all  who  have  spiritual  interests 
at  heart.  And  this  question  really  falls  into  two  parts : 
first,  What  do  we  mean  by  the  term  “human  prog¬ 
ress”?  and,  secondly,  What  is  our  conception  of  the 
standard  by  which  progress  should  be  judged?  By 
answering  the  first  question  we  shall  mark  out  the  field 
that  we  have  to  survey,  and  by  answering  the  second 
we  shall  test  the  instruments  to  be  used  in  surveying, 
so  as  to  be  sure  that  our  judgments  are  “on  the  level.” 

i 

What  then  do  we  mean  by  “human  progress”?  At 
first  thought,  doubtless,  a  long  line  of  practical  inven¬ 
tions  comes  before  our  minds,  beginning  perhaps  with 
the  compass,  the  art  of  printing,  the  magnet,  extending 
down  through  the  steam  engine,  the  gas  engine,  the 
dynamo,  the  camera,  and  ending  with  limited  expresses 
and  ocean  liners,  high-power  motor  cars  and  airplanes, 
the  telegraph,  telephone  and  wireless,  the  modern 
printing  press  and  motion-picture  machine.  In  short, 
there  is  no  question  but  that  we  now  can  do  many 
things  that  our  forefathers  could  not  do. 

But  then  there  probably  will  arise  in  our  thought 
the  growth  in  knowledge  on  which  these  inventions 
rest:  such  knowledge  as  is  made  possible  by  the  tele¬ 
scope,  microscope,  and  spectroscope;  such  knowledge 
as  is  embodied  in  theories  about  atoms  and  electrons, 
living  germs,  the  composition  of  the  distant  stars ;  such 


122 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


knowledge  of  plant  and  animal  life  as  is  spread  before 
us  in  our  botanical  and  natural  history  museums;  or 
the  story  of  the  human  race  as  it  has  been  gathered 
from  excavations,  ancient  monuments,  and  documents 
ancient  and  modern.  In  brief,  it  is  plain  that  we  now 
can  know  many  things  that  our  forefathers  could  not 
know. 

But  our  thought  also  may  pass  on  to  some  of  the 
great  organizations  of  modern  life :  the  immense  system 
of  mines  and  factories  with  their  enormous  output  of 
goods;  the  great  development  of  modern  agriculture, 
vastly  increasing  the  supply  of  food ;  the  extensive  or¬ 
ganizations  of  trade  by  which  raw  materials  are  gath¬ 
ered  and  goods  are  distributed  all  over  the  world ;  the 
colossal  banking  systems  of  modern  business;  and  the 
swarming,  sky-scraping  cities,  where  so  many  of  these 
interests  center.  And  as  we  think  of  these  matters  we 
realize  that  we  of  to-day  can  have  and  share  in  many 
things  that  our  forefathers  could  not. 

Now  if  we  pause  at  this  point,  as  we  often  do,  we 
are  apt  to  think  of  what  we  call  progress  as  being 
summed  up  in  “our  big  material  civilization/’  and  then 
we  sometimes  wonder  how  real  the  progress  is.  Are 
we  much  better,  or  happier,  or  even  wiser,  in  respect 
to  the  things  that  really  matter,  because  of  the  many 
things  that  we  can  do  and  know  and  have  which  our 
forefathers  could  not  do  and  know  and  have? 

A  little  reflection,  however,  ought  to  show  us  that 
as  yet  we  are  far  from  having  surveyed  our  field.  There 
are  gains  in  the  immaterial  realm  which  belong  no  less 
to  the  story  of  human  progress  than  any  of  the  material 
gains.  Moreover,  the  gains  of  the  two  realms  cannot 
be  sharply  separated,  but  rather  are  so  closely  inter¬ 
woven  as  to  form  one  story. 

Why  should  we  speak  of  inventions  in  the  mechanical 
realm  as  illustrating  progress  and  say  nothing  about 
discoveries  in  the  moral  realm?  Think,  for  example, 
of  the  most  fundamental  of  our  moral  discoveries — the 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  123 


sacredness  of  life,  the  worth  of  every  human  soul,  the 
value  of  human  personality  as  an  end  in  itself.  It  is 
unmistakable  that  this  discovery  has  been  deepening 
and  spreading  through  the  centuries,  effecting  progress 
in  our  treatment  of  children,  in  the  status  of  women, 
in  the  lot  of  the  masses  of  men  in  widening  areas 
around  the  world.  Similarly,  there  has  been  progress 
in  the  discovery  of  what  justice,  freedom,  truth,  love, 
and  many  other  spiritual  principles  really  mean  which 
has  been  vastly  beneficial  to  the  human  race. 

And  are  not  the  moral  discoveries  conditioned  to  an 
important  degree  upon  a  growth  of  knowledge  in  the 
spiritual  realm  which  is  comparable  to  the  growth  of 
knowledge  in  the  physical  realm?  The  history  of 
human  languages  and  literatures  and  customs,  the 
comparative  study  of  men’s  faiths  and  morals,  the 
spreading  of  information  about  other  races,  nations, 
and  classes,  the  analysis  and  exploration  of  man’s 
psychic  nature — how  poor  we  should  be  without  this 
accumulated  knowledge  of  the  spiritual  life  of  man¬ 
kind  !  If  we  recall  what  went  into  the  making  of  John 
Milton,  for  example,  we  see  at  once  how  the  wealth  of 
the  accumulated  knowledge  of  his  modern  world  bore 
fruit  in  a  great  spirit.  The  Bible,  the  Greek  classics, 
European  art,  the  forces  making  for  British  liberty,  the 
new  life  of  America,  all  conspired  to  make  Milton  one 
of  the  powerful  forces  for  human  progress. 

No  less  is  the  spiritual  aspect  evident  in  the  institu¬ 
tions  of  society.  The  missionary  has  often  been  ahead 
of  the  trader  and  the  consul  in  penetrating  to  remote 
and  isolated  portions  of  the  globe.  The  spiritual  forces 
incarnated  in  David  Livingstone  have  certainly  not 
been  less  significant  for  Africa  than  the  commercial 
and  imperial  forces  incarnated  in  Cecil  Rhodes.  Evi¬ 
dently  our  missionary  organizations  have  done  much 
of  the  pioneer  work  of  the  world.  Educational  in¬ 
stitutions  also  are  often  centers  of  spiritual  progress. 
From  them  emanate  wholesome  criticism  and  fresh 


124 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


idealism  which  penetrate  politics  in  a  stimulating  way. 
Certain  of  our  educators  are  known  to  be  the  real 
drafters  of  many  of  the  laws  in  which  progressive 
movements  get  embodied.  The  Institute  of  Politics 
which  Williams  College  convenes  each  summer  is  far 
ahead  of  our  congresses  and  parliaments  in  getting  at 
real  problems  and  dealing  with  them  in  a  vigorous, 
constructive  way.  So  also  our  institutions  of  worship 
and  of  art,  at  their  best,  are  powerful  forces  for  progress. 
The  forces  of  business  and  of  the  state  may  often  be  the 
means  of  preserving  the  unity  of  a  people,  but  the 
forces  that  create  that  unity  are  more  truly  the  people’s 
songs,  their  artistic  shrines,  and  their  faiths. 

Thus  human  progress  is  an  immaterial,  spiritual  mat¬ 
ter  as  truly  as  a  material  matter.  It  includes  moral 
discoveries  as  well  as  physical  inventions,  gains  in 
spiritual  wisdom  as  well  as  the  advancement  of  physical 
science,  and  the  institutions  that  nourish  man’s  higher 
life  as  well  as  the  commerce  and  industry  that  feed, 
clothe,  transport,  and  amuse  him.  And  these  two  sides 
of  human  progress  are  so  closely  bound  up  together  as 
to  make  one  story.  For  instance,  one  of  the  deepest 
notes  of  the  spiritual  life  in  all  ages  is  the  note  of  com¬ 
passion.  But  to-day,  genuine  compassion  must  make 
large  use  of  physical  invention — landing  supplies  in 
Armenia  by  airplane,  using  the  tractor  plow  to  conquer 
the  famines  of  India,  taking  the  X-ray  machine  and  the 
sterilizing  apparatus  to  distant  peoples.  Thus,  the 
spiritual  side  of  life  musters  the  material  side  into  its 
service  and  multiplies  its  significance.  But  material 
advancement,  in  turn,  gives  spiritual  life  its  oppor¬ 
tunity.  Material  advancement  normally  results  in 
aspiration.  Often,  it  is  true,  this  aspiration — for  want 
of  positive  spiritual  leadership  of  the  right  sort — does 
not  get  beyond  dissatisfaction  and  unrest.  But  nor¬ 
mally  it  reaches  out  toward  liberty,  education,  and  the 
finer  things  of  the  spirit. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  define  what  we  mean  by 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  125 


human  progress.  Our  defining,  we  see,  must  be  inclu¬ 
sive,  making  room  for  both  the  material  and  the  spir¬ 
itual  and  their  interactions.  Human  progress,  let  us 
say,  is  the  unfolding  of  human  power  for  the  achieving 
of  goods,  and  the  attainments  that  result.  Progress  is 
essentially  a  matter  of  the  release  and  control  of  power. 
And  mankind  has  made  momentous  gains  in  the  release 
and  control  of  power  since  it  started  on  the  long  trail 
of  history.  This  appears  in  three  great  realms:  physi¬ 
cal  nature,  personal  life,  and  society.  In  the  realm  of 
physical  nature  these  gains  have  been  in  the  modern 
time  swift  and  miraculous.  In  the  realm  of  personal 
life  we  have  the  slow  but  cumulative  effects  of  educa¬ 
tion  and  religion.  In  the  realm  of  society  in  the  mass 
the  gains  have  been  fluctuating  and  uneven.  Yet  any 
one  who  compares  1922  a.d.  with  1922  b.c.  will  not 
doubt  that  real  and  momentous  gains  have  been  made. 
And  out  of  this  vast  increase  in  the  release  and  control 
of  power  has  come  a  multitude  of  goods  that  enter  in 
the  most  various  ways  into  making  up  the  meaning 
and  value  of  life. 

ii 

Having  thus  determined  what  we  ought  to  mean  by 
“human  progress,”  we  now  are  in  a  better  position  to 
answer  the  questions  asked  at  the  outset.  And  those 
questions  still  remain  to  be  answered,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  progress  is  spiritual  as  well  as  material 
and  that  the  two  sides  are  closely  bound  up  together. 
We  have  said  that  progress  is  a  matter  of  the  release 
and  control  of  power,  but  to  what  ends  is  the  power 
to  be  controlled?  We  see  the  multitude  of  goods  avail¬ 
able  for  men,  but  how  often  they  conflict,  how  often 
they  abolish  each  other!  Industries  become  organized 
into  marvelous  productivity,  but  what  of  the  inhuman¬ 
ities  of  industry?  Able  men  acquire  enormous  power, 
but  do  they  have  a  corresponding  wisdom  and  will  to 
serve?  Nations  develop  each  a  rich  and  varied  culture, 


126 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


and  then — war!  And  so  we  have  to  return  to  the 
question  again,  What  is  the  connection  between  civili¬ 
zation  and  salvation,  between  goods  and  goodness,  be¬ 
tween  increase  in  skill  and  growth  in  grace? 

This  is  really  the  question  of  the  standard  of  progress. 
The  unfolding  of  human  power  in  all  its  range  and 
scope  can  be  heartily  welcomed  if  its  various  phases 
can  be  made  to  cooperate  toward  high  and  harmonious 
ends.  The  attainment  of  the  most  various  goods  can 
be  encouraged  if  they  can  be  made  vital  parts  of  a  cen¬ 
tral  and  supreme  good.  What,  then,  is  the  test  of 
human  progress  by  which  we  may  determine  whether 
it  is  real  progress,  or  by  the  application  of  which  we 
may  hope  to  make  progress  more  real? 

As  Christians,  we  seek  our  test  from  the  Christian 
faith  and  experience.  But  the  trouble  has  been  that, 
even  so,  our  tests  have  been  considerably  at  variance 
with  each  other.  Even  when  we  have  had  the  same 
names  for  our  tests,  we  frequently  have  allowed  these 
names,  perhaps  half  unconsciously,  to  stand  for  widely 
different  meanings.  But  if  we  are  honestly  seeking 
the  central  realities  of  the  Christian  experience,  shall 
we  not  agree  that  the  standard  by  which  progress 
should  be  measured  is  given  us  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus? 
Jesus  Christ — His  person,  His  teaching,  His  revelation, 
His  work — that  is  what  is  central  for  all  Christian  ex¬ 
perience.  But  Jesus  is  not  to  us  a  second  Moses.  Moses 
was  a  great  lawgiver,  but  Jesus  is,  as  Paul  tells  us,  “a 
life-giving  spirit/’  The  cross  of  Christ  has  been,  down 
through  the  ages,  central  for  the  experience  of  Chris¬ 
tians.  But  we  do  not  possess  inwardly  the  truth  of 
the  cross  of  Christ  unless,  having  died  with  Christ  unto 
sin  and  risen  with  Him,  we  “walk  in  newness  of  life.” 
And  the  climax  of  the  Christian  experience  and  Chris¬ 
tian  fellowship  comes  when  “we  all,  with  unveiled  face, 
reflecting  as  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  trans¬ 
formed  into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  even 
as  from  the  Lord  the  Spirit.”  Thus,  in  the  spirit  of 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  127 


Jesus  we  truly  have  that  which  must  be  central  for  the 
Christian  life  and  the  Christian’s  standard  of  progress. 

But  if  we  are  to  apply  the  spirit  of  Jesus  as  a  test 
of  progress,  it  will  be  well  for  us  to  bring  out  more  fully 
some  of  its  main  meanings.  Let  me  suggest  four  great 
meanings  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  as  being  particularly 
applicable  to  the  problem  of  progress. 

And  first  of  all,  the  spirit  of  Jesus  means  Freedom. 
Jesus  called  men  into  the  experience  of  living  as  sons  of 
God.  That  meant  a  new  dignity  for  the  oppressed  Jew 
and  the  disinherited  Galilean.  It  enfranchised  their 
souls  and  set  them  inwardly  free  from  the  political 
tyranny  of  the  alien  and  the  religious  tyranny  of  their 
own  social  system.  The  common  people  began  to  dis¬ 
cover  that  religion  was  something  for  them  in  the  midst 
of  their  common  life,  and  they  made  the  discovery 
gladly.  The  result  was  that  a  new  yeast,  a  powerful 
ferment,  began  to  penetrate  the  lump  of  society  in 
Palestine.  Jesus  Himself  was  clearly  conscious  of  this 
transforming  and  liberating  character  of  His  work.  He 
said  that  His  teaching  was  like  strong  new  cloth,  not  to 
be  used  simply  as  a  patch  on  an  old  garment,  and  like 
new  wine,  which  could  not  be  contained  in  old  wine¬ 
skins.  He  said  that  His  followers  were  children  of  the 
bridechamber  and  could  not  but  rejoice,  and  that  the 
least  in  the  New  Order  were  greater  than  the  greatest 
in  the  Old. 

This  freedom  which  marked  the  spirit  of  Jesus  passed 
on  into  the  early  Church.  It  is  seen  at  Pentecost  and 
in  the  many  other  outpourings  of  the  Spirit.  A  friend 
who  is  a  professor  of  English  literature  recently  re¬ 
marked  on  how  strikingly  the  whole  New  Testament 
was  characterized  by  the  note  of  exuberance  and  joy. 
Preeminently  is  this  true  of  Paul,  whose  understanding 
of  Christ’s  work  is  that  it  makes  us  new  creatures.  Un¬ 
mistakably  the  spirit  of  Jesus  is  one  of  Freedom. 
“Where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty.” 

But  in  the  second  place,  the  spirit  of  Jesus  no  less 


128 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


unmistakably  means  Fellowship.  To  Jesus,  sonship 
and  brotherhood,  love  for  God  and  love  for  one’s  neigh¬ 
bor,  go  together.  According  to  His  thought,  one  cannot 
be  truly  free  unless  he  is  also  fraternal.  Would  we  be 
reconciled  to  God?  Jesus  bids  us  first  be  reconciled  to 
our  brother.  Would  we  become  sons  of  God?  Jesus 
shows  us  the  one  true  way — that  of  love,  even  for  our 
enemies.  Would  we  become  great  among  men?  None 
is  great,  Jesus  tells  us,  except  he  who  greatly  serves. 

Similarly,  Paul  declares  that  if  we  have  been  truly 
set  free  we  shall  bear  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  the  first 
of  which  is  love;  and  that  speaking  with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels  is  no  evidence  of  the  Spirit  if  we 
have  not  love.  Do  we  ask  how  far  this  love  should  go 
in  its  fellowship  and  fraternity?  Paul  gives  us  a  living 
demonstration  of  the  answer,  for  he  is  ready  to  die  daily 
for  the  churches  and  to  be  the  bond-servant  of  all,  while 
all  the  time  there  is  at  the  center  of  his  life  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 
Thus,  the  spirit  of  Jesus  means  both  liberty  and  love, 
both  freedom  and  fellowship.  It  enfranchises  men’s 
souls  and  at  the  same  time  enlists  them  in  limitless 
service  for  the  redemption  and  progress  of  mankind. 

But  to  Freedom  and  Fellowship  as  qualities  in  the 
spirit  of  Jesus  we  must  add  a  third  quality,  namely, 
Faith.  With  Jesus  faith  was  the  root  of  which  freedom 
and  fellowship  were  the  fruit.  Human  sonship  and 
brotherhood  were  grounded  in  the  divine  Fatherhood. 
Morality  was  fed  by  mysticism.  Faith  was  what  He 
sought  in  men.  It  was  the  power  that,  though  tiny  as 
a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  could  level  mountains.  Faith 
was  also  what  He  awakened  in  men — in  the  palsied  in¬ 
valid,  in  the  Roman  soldier,  in  the  taxgatherer,  and 
sometimes  in  the  Pharisee — and,  when  awakened,  it 
enabled  Him  to  say,  “Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,”  “Thy 
faith  hath  made  thee  whole.”  And  again,  it  was 
faith  that  He  himself  brought  to  men.  He  founded  his 
mission  upon  faith  when  He  declared,  “Man  shall  not 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  129 


live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth 
out  of  the  mouth  of  God.”  The  crisis  of  His  mission 
turned  upon  the  same  principle  when  He  told  the  re¬ 
ligious  officialdom  of  His  time  that  the  service  of  God 
was  not  tithing  mint,  anise,  and  cummin, — but  jus¬ 
tice,  mercy,  and  faith.  And  faith  was  the  closing  note 
of  His  life  when  in  Gethsemane  He  said,  “Nevertheless, 
not  my  will,  but  thine,  be  done.”  What  wonder  that 
evangelicalism  has  always  enshrined  this  central  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  evangel  in  its  watchword,  “justification  by 
faith.” 

But  there  is  yet  a  fourth  quality  of  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  which  is  of  peculiar  importance  for  our  problem. 
It  is  Truth.  Jesus,  to  be  sure,  has  nothing  to  say  about 
truth  in  the  scientific  sense,  because  neither  He  nor  His 
age  was  concerned  with  scientific  problems.  But  He 
has  the  moral  equivalent  of  scientific  truth,  namely, 
sincerity,  the  hatred  of  sham,  the  love  of  reality.  He 
was  impatient  of  the  conventionality  of  the  adult  but 
He  loved  the  candor  of  the  child.  He  revolted  from 
the  pretense  of  the  Pharisee’s  petition,  but  His  heart 
went  out  to  the  humble  frankness  of  the  prayer  of  the 
publican.  He  saw  only  hypocrisy  in  the  jealousy  for 
the  Sabbath  which  was  indifferent  to  living  human 
needs,  but  real  faith  and  sincere  compassion  He  praised 
wherever  He  found  it,  whether  in  Roman  centurion  or 
Samaritan.  The  single  eye  and  the  single  mind,  the 
discernment  which  belongs  to  the  pure  heart,  the  forth¬ 
rightness  of  him  who  not  only  knows  but  does  God’s 
will — these  are  fundamental  for  Jesus.  They  reveal 
how  deeply  truth-loving  the  spirit  of  Jesus  was  and 
show  the  extent  to  which  His  Gospel  is  founded  on 
Truth.  Hence  it  is  that  the  Fourth  Gospel,  when  it 
makes  Truth  one  of  its  great  words,  is  so  revealing  of 
the  mind  of  Christ.  In  this  Gospel  we  clearly  see  that 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  is  a  spirit  of  truth,  which  sets  men 
free,  creates  fellowship,  and  kindles  faith. 

Freedom,  Fellowship,  Faith,  and  Truth  are  the  great 


130 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


qualities  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  which  are  most  impor¬ 
tant  for  defining  that  spirit  as  the  measure  of  progress. 
They  are  the  quadrilateral  of  the  Gospel  which  fit  it 
to  stand  four-square  amid  the  currents  of  human  life 
and  to  gauge  their  direction  and  their  value.  They 
define  the  ideal  and  the  end  according  to  which  the 
release  and  control  of  power  must  be  regulated  if  there 
is  to  be  real  progress. 


hi 

Having  thus  brought  out  what  we  should  mean  by 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  as  the  standard  of  progress,  we  need 
now  to  indicate  some  results  which  follow  when  the 
actual  unfoldings  of  human  power  are  judged  by  this 
standard. 

When  human  power  and  human  goods  are  judged 
by  the  spirit  of  Jesus  two  outstanding  conclusions  be¬ 
come  evident.  The  first  conclusion  is  that,  in  all  the 
varied  unfoldings  of  human  power  and  in  all  the  goods 
that  have  resulted,  there  is  nothing  that  inherently  is 
common  or  unclean,  but  that  human  powers  and  goods 
are  in  principle  intrinsically  worthful  and  capable  of 
being  united  into  a  true  progress.  That  is,  there  is 
nothing  that  man  has  learned  about  the  release  and 
control  of  power  which  may  not  be  turned  to  account 
in  making  a  world  governed  by  Freedom,  Fellowship, 
Faith,  and  Truth.  The  multitude  of  things  that  we 
to-day  can  do  and  know  and  have  which  our  fore¬ 
fathers  could  not  can  all  be  controlled  and  utilized  by 
the  spirit  of  Jesus. 

The  missionary  enterprise  is  the  perfect  illustration 
of  this.  The  missionary  in  China,  for  example,  centers 
his  work  in  the  church  as  a  Christian  fellowship,  but 
he  also  starts  the  school  and  the  college,  he  builds  up 
the  hospital,  he  promotes  printing,  he  improves  agri¬ 
culture,  he  looks  upon  the  railroad  as  an  ally,  he  sum¬ 
mons  the  civil  engineer  to  help  in  defeating  flood  and 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  131 


famine.  He  is  ready  to  enlist  all  our  inventions,  all 
our  scientific  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  man,  all  our 
organized  social  life  in  the  service  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus. 
For  the  very  sake  of  bringing  men  effectively  into  the 
experience  of  Freedom,  Fellowship,  Faith,  and  Truth 
he  draws  upon  all  that  has  been  learned  about  the 
release  and  control  of  power. 

But  the  other  conclusion  is  no  less  important.  There 
may  be  much  progress  in  learning  how  to  release  and 
control  power,  and  there  may  be,  in  consequence,  an 
achievement  of  goods  on  a  great  scale — goods  both 
material  and  spiritual — and  yet  this  progress  and 
achievement  may  become  self-defeating  because  they 
are  not  sufficiently  controlled  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus. 
We  know  too  well  that  there  is  great  wealth  that  does 
not  serve  the  commonwealth,  that  there  is  high  art 
that  does  not  elevate  character,  that  great  organiza¬ 
tions  of  industry  often  breed  bitter  class  strife,  that 
civic  loyalty  may  not  inhibit  race  antipathy,  and  that 
the  factories,  laboratories,  universities,  and  churches 
of  one  nation  may  suddenly  be  mobilized  for  war 
against  another  nation.  Clearly,  progress  is  not  a 
matter  of  a  self-operating  evolution  that  moves 
steadily  onward  and  upward  without  needing  any 
central  principle  and  regardless  of  whether  men  dis¬ 
cover  such  a  principle  and  are  guided  by  it.  On  the 
contrary,  progress  comes  about  at  all  only  because 
there  is  a  Divine  Will  at  the  heart  of  the  world  that 
aims  to  make  Freedom,  Fellowship,  Truth,  and  Faith 
prevail,  and  that  accordingly  is  conditioned  upon  the 
extent  to  which  these  principles  become  incarnated  in 
the  lives  of  men. 

To  the  question,  then,  with  which  we  began,  Should 
the  Christian  welcome  progress  or  be  indifferent  to  it? 
we  answer  emphatically  that  he  should  welcome  it, 
for  the  reason  that  he  is  called  upon  by  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  to  be  a  creator  of  progress.  The  Christian  is  in¬ 
terested  in  every  manifestation  of  the  release  and 


132 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


control  of  power,  because  all  such  manifestations  in¬ 
crease  his  opportunity  of  incarnating  Freedom,  Fellow¬ 
ship,  Faith,  and  Truth,  and  because  he  knows  that 
without  these  principles  of  Jesus  the  most  elaborately 
built  system  of  powers  will  bring  about  its  own  de¬ 
struction  in  the  end. 

It  is  thus  a  vital  part  of  the  Christian’s  task  to  make 
wisdom  and  righteousness  reinforce  each  other;  to 
bring  growth  in  skill  and  growth  in  grace  into  har¬ 
monious  interaction ;  to  learn  how  the  making  of  things 
beautiful  and  the  attaining  of  the  beauty  of  holiness 
may  be  part  of  one  spiritual  experience;  to  develop 
an  education  that  saves  and  to  preach  a  salvation  that 
educates;  to  show  that  the  deepening  of  intelligence 
leads  on  to  faith,  and  that  the  more  vital  the  faith  the 
more  intelligence  will  be  welcomed:  and  by  all  such 
means  to  bring  into  fruitful  union  the  two  great  ideals 
of  the  advancement  of  civilization  and  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God. 

And  when  the  vital  kinship  between  the  ideals  of 
Progress  and  of  the  Kingdom  is  thus  realized  a  new 
depth  and  range  and  glory  are  revealed  for  the  religious 
experience  of  the  Christian.  For  God  is  then  seen  to 
be,  not  simply  the  author  of  creation,  but  also  to  be  ac¬ 
tively  creating  now.  He  is  seen  to  be,  in  reality,  the 
Eternal  Creative  Good  Will.  Therefore  the  Christian 
experience  of  God,  in  its  deepest  and  fullest  sense, 
will  mean  a  sharing  in  God’s  creative  work.  The  full 
meaning  of  sonship  to  God  is  to  be  found  in  creative 
living  to  the  end  of  achieving  for  all  men  a  world  of 
Freedom,  Fellowship,  Faith,  and  Truth.  Herein  the 
deep  joyfulness  of  the  Christian  life  appears.  From 
this  point  of  view,  the  Christian  life  is  clearly  evident 
as  a  life  abundant.  And  there  is  nothing  in  the  whole 
range  of  man’s  experience  of  the  release  and  control  of 
power — whether  in  the  material  or  the  spiritual  sphere 
— that  cannot  be  taken  up  into  the  life  with  God,  thus 
understood,  and  transfigured. 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  PROGRESS?  133 


And  when  those  tragic  experiences  come,  which  be¬ 
fall  us  because  man’s  efforts  for  the  release  and  control 
of  power  turn  self-defeating,  the  life  with  God,  from 
this  point  of  view,  remains  vital  and  intimate,  while  at 
the  same  time  opening  out  new  depths  of  meaning. 
For  in  such  tragic  crises  God  is  realized  as  an  actively 
redeeming  God,  just  as  in  more  normal  situations  He 
is  realized  as  the  actively  creating  God.  As  Jesus  when 
He  was  on  earth  was  both  a  Redeemer  from  men’s 
blindness  and  suffering  and  sin  and  a  Creator  of  a  New 
Order,  so  all  through  human  history  God  is  redeeming 
and  creating;  and  so  each  one  who  has  a  living  ex¬ 
perience  of  God  becomes  a  sharer  in  His  redemptive 
and  creative  work. 

Thus  the  Christian,  through  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  not 
only  becomes  possessed  of  the  standard  of  progress, 
but  also  is  sent  out  into  the  stream  of  history  with  in¬ 
finite  resources  from  God  with  which  to  redeem  the 
defeats  of  progress  and  to  carry  it  forward  to  such 
creative  achievements  as  men  in  the  past  have  hardly 
dared  to  hope  for.  And  in  turn,  by  recognizing  human 
progress  as  the  chief  sphere  of  application  for  his  re¬ 
ligious  experience,  the  Christian  becomes  most  fully  a 
sharer  in  the  saviorhood  and  the  creativity  of  God. 


CHAPTER  X 


HOW  SHALL  WE  THINK  OF  LIFE 
AFTER  DEATH? 

By  Francis  G.  Peabody 

The  first  answer  which  must  be  made  to  the  ques¬ 
tion,  How  shall  we  think  of  life  after  death?  is  that  we 
should  not  think  too  much  or  too  seriously  about  it. 
A  vast  amount  of  precious  time  and  anxious  thought, 
which  might  have  been  devoted  to  immediate  obliga¬ 
tions  and  opportunities,  has  been  wasted  in  apprehen¬ 
sive  expectancy  or  fruitless  speculations  concerning 
the  mysterious  future.  What  has  been  commended  as 
otherworldliness,  and  which  might  be  applied  to  the 
mastery  of  this  world,  has  been  applied  to  contempt  of 
this  world  and  contemplation  of  another.  Life,  to  such 
a  habit  of  mind,  becomes  little  more  than  a  preparation 
for  the  supreme  incident  of  death.  “Prepare  to  die,” 
becomes  the  controlling  maxim  of  conduct.  “Suffer 
me  not  for  any  pains  of  death  to  fall  from  Thee!”  be¬ 
comes  the  tremulous  prayer  of  the  devout  soul. 

The  fact  is,  however,  that  so  normal  and  universal 
an  experience  as  that  of  bodily  death  is  quite  misin¬ 
terpreted  when  it  is  thus  assumed  to  cut  life  in  halves. 
To  live  a  divided  life,  with  immediate  duties  demand¬ 
ing  attention,  but  with  an  apprehensive  glance  to  fu¬ 
ture  rewards  and  penalties,  may  be  to  lose  the  best  of 
both  worlds.  To  inquire  insistently  concerning  the 
forms  and  conditions  of  the  future  may  be,  as  Paul  said, 
to  “turn  again  to  the  beggarly  elements,”  instead  of 
resting  in  confidence  that  one  is  “known  of  God.”  In  a 

134 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


135 


word,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  immortality  must  be 
approached  through  a  large  area  of  confessed  ignorance, 
remembering  that  when  some  asked,  “How  are  the 
dead  raised  up,  and  with  what  body  do  they  come?” 
the  candid  rebuke  of  the  Apostle  was,  “Thou  fool!” 
There  can  be  but  one  way  to  win  heaven — through  the 
glad  and  serene  fulfilment  of  the  duties  of  earth; 
there  can  be  but  one  heaven  which  is  worth  winning — 
where  the  hopes  and  dreams  of  earth  may  be  realized, 
and  its  failures  and  blunders  forgiven.  If  meditation 
on  eternity  become  a  substitute  for  the  duties  of  the 
passing  day,  death  is  not  so  much  an  event  of  the 
future  as  a  present  condition  of  moral  paralysis  and 
decay.  The  less  one  thinks  of  the  life  after  death  as 
set  apart  from  this  life  by  a  grim  wall  the  better  for 
one’s  present  duties  and  for  one’s  future  peace.  The 
first  summons  to  a  human  soul  is  not  “Prepare  to  die,” 
but  “Prepare  to  live.” 

These  preliminary  reflections  do  not,  of  course,  imply 
that  speculations  and  anticipations  concerning  life  after 
death  are  unimportant  or  superfluous.  They  are,  on 
the  contrary,  inevitable.  From  the  beginning  of  hu¬ 
man  history,  the  condition  and  occupation  of  departed 
souls,  the  bliss  of  saints  and  the  fate  of  sinners,  have 
been  the  themes  of  prophets  and  poets,  of  system- 
makers  and  seers;  and  sorrowing  hearts  in  the  modern 
world  renew  the  cry  of  the  ages,  when  they  ask : 

Ah,  Christ,  that  it  were  possible 

For  one  short  hour  to  see 

The  souls  we  love,  that  they  might  tell  us 

What  and  where  they  be. 

It  is  not  essential,  however,  to  enter  into  these  world- 
old  discussions  of  rewards  and  penalties,  probation  and 
occupation,  in  order  to  make  one’s  first  approach  to 
the  thought  of  life  after  death.  The  first  condition  of 
a  rational  faith  is  in  recognizing  that  life  is  not  made 
of  two  detached  existences,  but  of  one  continuous 


136 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


whole,  with  all  the  possibilities  of  growth,  education, 
degeneration,  or  decay.  From  such  a  starting  point, 
one’s  preliminary  answer  to  the  question,  How  shall 
we  think  of  life  after  death?  becomes  changed  into 
the  question,  How  shall  we  think  of  life  before  death? 
Mysterious  as  the  future  may  appear,  it  is,  in  fact, 
hardly  more  mysterious  than  the  experiences  of  this 
present  life,  with  their  strange  surprises  of  joy  and 
sorrow,  their  summons  to  adventure  of  thought  and 
desire,  of  work  and  love.  How  is  one  to  live  in  a  world 
like  this,  of  such  confused  and  clashing  aims,  of  self- 
realization  and  self-sacrifice,  of  getting  and  giving,  of 
material  and  spiritual  desires,  and  find  in  it  the  intima¬ 
tion  and  assurance  of  continuity?  How  are  the  routine 
and  detail,  the  daily  round  and  common  task,  to  furnish 
all  we  ought  to  ask  of  worth  and  hope? 

At  this  point,  one  meets  the  clearly  indicated,  but 
dimly  appreciated,  teaching  of  the  New  Testament 
concerning  the  real  significance  of  life  and  death.  With 
a  reiteration  and  emphasis  which  leave  no  doubt  of  the 
intention,  the  entire  problem  of  life  is  transferred,  not 
by  way  of  rhetoric,  but  by  strict  definition,  from  the 
incidents  of  the  body  to  the  experiences  of  the  spirit. 
The  promise  of  Jesus,  given  to  his  followers  just  before 
his  physical  death,  is  that  they  shall  have  life,  and  have 
it  abundantly.  The  Apostle’s  message  is  that  “we  have 
passed  out  of  death  into  life,  because  we  love  the 
brethren.”  The  warning  of  Paul  is  that  “to  be  carnally- 
minded  is  death,  but  to  be  spiritually-minded  is  life.” 
It  is  not,  he  teaches,  disease,  but  sin,  which  kills.  “The 
body  is  dead  because  of  sin.”  Assurances  and  admo¬ 
nitions  like  these  imply  a  definition  of  life  and  death 
which  is  quite  distinct  from  physical  condition  or 
change.  Life  becomes,  not  a  matter  of  bodily  dura¬ 
tion,  but  a  matter  of  spiritual  vitality.  One  may  fancy 
himself  alive,  in  the  flush  of  bodily  health,  and  yet,  ac¬ 
cording  to  this  teaching,  may  be  sick,  even  unto  death. 
“This  my  son,”  says  the  father  of  the  prodigal,  not  in 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH  137 

a  figure  of  speech  but  as  a  statement  of  fact,  “was 
dead,  and  is  alive  again.” 

The  same  transfer  of  significance  is  made  in  the 
New  Testament  concerning  the  life  after  death.  Eter¬ 
nal  life  is  not  a  problem  of  the  future,  but  a  gift  in  this 
present  world:  “This  is  life  eternal.”  “Lay  hold  on 
eternal  life.”  “Ye  have  eternal  life.”  Even  the  resur¬ 
rection  of  Jesus  Christ  is  described  as  an  experience 
which  may  be  shared  as  a  present  possession.  “If  ye 
be  risen  with  Christ,”  says  Paul,  “seek  those  things 
which  are  above.”  “If  by  any  means  I  may  attain  unto 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead.  Not  that  I  have  al¬ 
ready  attained;  but  I  am  pressing  on,  to  lay  hold  of 
the  prize,  for  which  also  Christ  laid  hold  on  me.”  To 
seek  the  things  which  are  above  is  to  rise  with  Christ. 
To  lay  hold  of  the  prize  for  which  Christ  laid  hold 
of  me  is  to  attain  to  the  resurrection.  Thus,  the  funda¬ 
mental  question  concerning  life  and  death  is  not, 
Shall  I  after  death  enter  into  another  life?  but,  Am 
I  alive  now,  with  a  spiritual  vitality  which  is  free  from 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  body,  and  has  the  quality  of  time¬ 
lessness?  In  a  word,  the  New  Testament  sets  the 
spiritual  world  over  against  the  sensuous  world.  When¬ 
ever,  and  in  so  far  as,  one  passes  from  slavery  to  the 
flesh  to  the  freedom  of  the  spirit,  he  has  already  passed 
from  death  into  life  and  satisfied  the  conditions  of  con¬ 
tinuity. 

This  New  Testament  doctrine  of  life  before  death 
has,  however,  a  twofold  significance  when  it  is  applied 
to  life  after  death.  It  cuts  both  ways  in  one’s  thought 
of  the  future,  revealing,  on  the  one  hand,  the  source 
of  much  that  is  crude  and  futile  in  these  anticipations, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  opening  the  way  to  what  is 
stable  and  sane.  On  the  one  hand,  it  becomes  evident 
that  the  chief  reason  why  a  materialized  and  vulgar¬ 
ized  heaven  has  seemed  inviting  to  believers  is  that 
their  present  life  has  been  such  that  nothing  but  ma¬ 
terialism  and  vulgarity  becomes  alluring.  Harps  and 


138 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


crowns  hereafter  may  well  appear  adequate  rewards  if 
life  itself  has  been  devoted  either  to  play  or  glory.  A 
life  distracted  by  nervous  strain,  or  weary  of  unremit¬ 
ting  routine,  may  not  unreasonably  desire  a  future  of 
irresponsible  repose.  The  tense  emotion  of  bereave¬ 
ment  may  welcome  even  such  intermittent  and  frag¬ 
mentary  communications  as  are  given  through  the 
language  of  trance.  Glimpses  or  guesses  of  this  na¬ 
ture,  whatever  may  be  their  validity,  are,  in  any  event, 
evidences  of  the  hopes  and  fears  which  dominate  the 
present  life.  What  is  seen  or  foreseen  visualizes  what 
is  hoped  for.  One’s  thought  of  heaven  reveals  one’s 
desire  on  earth.  The  deep  beyond  cannot  call  to  the 
shallows  here.  Spiritual  things  must  be  spiritually 
discerned.  No  evidence  of  the  habitual  level  on  which 
many  lives  exist  is  more  convincing  than  the  narrow 
range  of  spiritual  horizon  which  their  imaginations  see. 
To  a  dweller  in  the  lowlands,  the  foothills  hide  the 
mountains,  and  one  may  not  even  know  what  lies  be¬ 
yond. 

And  if  it  be  true  that  misdirected  living  in  this  life 
distorts  or  represses  one’s  thought  of  the  future,  it  is 
not  less  true  that  the  most  irresistible  evidence  con¬ 
cerning  the  future  is  derived  from  present  association 
with  lives  which  do  not  seem  likely  to  die.  That  was 
the  fundamental  conviction  which  sustained  the  dis¬ 
ciples  of  Jesus  when  their  Master  died.  His  life  had 
become  to  them  dissociated  from  the  fate  of  His  body; 
its  continuance  was  the  corollary  of  its  character. 
Death,  as  Paul  wrote,  had  no  more  dominion  over  Him; 
and  the  seer  of  the  Apocalypse  puts  the  great  saying  in 
the  mouth  of  the  glorified  Christ,  “I  am  alive  forever¬ 
more,  and  have  the  keys  of  death.”  It  was  not  so  much 
the  appearances  of  His  form  which  confirmed  faith  in 
Him,  it  was  faith  in  Him  which  assured  His  followers 
of  the  appearances.  “Have  I  not  seen  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord?”  wrote  Paul,  years  later,  of  his  vision  of  the 
Master, 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


139 


The  same  experience  of  spiritual  intimacy  has  sus¬ 
tained  and  restrained  conviction  ever  since.  One  has 
had  experience  of  lives  which  had  in  them  the  quality 
of  timelessness, — the  guileless  charm  of  a  little  child, 
like  one  ^hom  Jesus  set  in  the  midst  as  the  type  of 
God’s  Kingdom;  the  companionship  of  maturity;  the 
serenity  of  age ;  and  across  the  centuries,  the  undimin¬ 
ished  inspiration  of  the  personality  of  Jesus  Christ. 
As  one  contemplates  these  witnesses  of  the  spirit, 
the  fate  of  the  body  becomes  a  passing  incident  in  the 
continuity  of  their  lives.  It  may  be  difficult  to  picture 
the  form  which  this  spiritual  vitality  may  assume,  but 
it  is  much  more  difficult  to  think  of  it  as  extinct.  In¬ 
timacy  with  such  lives  detaches  one  from  the  tem¬ 
porary,  and  associates  one  with  the  permanent.  The 
things  that  are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the  things  which 
are  not  seen  are  eternal.  Such  is,  as  Emerson  said,  the 

Verdict  which  accumulates 

From  lengthening  scrolls  of  human  fates, 

Saying,  What  is  excellent, 

As  God  lives,  is  permanent. 

Quality  in  life  is  the  best  assurance  of  quantity.  It  is 
those  who  have  attained  to  the  resurrection  here  who 
convince  us  of  its  continuity  hereafter.  Such  remi¬ 
niscences  and  assurances  remove  one  altogether  from 
the  region  of  argument  or  proof.  As  one  knows  what 
life  is  by  living,  or  what  sight  is  by  seeing,  so  we  know 
what  immortality  is  by  seeing  and  loving  souls  that  are 
obviously  immortal. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  inference  which  may  be  derived 
from  observation  of  the  Excellent.  For  it  is  in  reality 
this  spiritual  continuity  which  is  the  only  life  after 
death  that  can  be  worth  the  having.  A  future  life 
which  is  mere  duration,  or  which  is  concerned  with 
trivial  aims  and  indolent  satisfactions,  is  by  no  means 
to  be  anticipated  as  desirable.  Far  more  welcome 
would  be  a  release  by  extinction,  or  an  absorption  in 


140 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


the  Infinite,  than  a  fixed  eternity,  even  of  blessedness. 
But  to  contemplate  the  future  as  opportunity,  not  to 
repent  alone,  but  to  repair;  to  think  of  life  not  as 
standing  still,  but  as  going  on,  and  of  death  not  as  a 
condemnation,  but  as  a  migration;  to  escape  from  a 
heaven  of  monotonous  blessedness,  and  find  a  heaven 
of  discovery,  adventure,  vision  and  enlarging  service; 
to  be  given  a  chance  to  redeem  the  blunders  and  follies 
which  one  so  bitterly  recalls ;  to  believe  that  the  shining 
witnesses  of  the  spirit  which  have  illuminated  this  life 
are  undimmed  by  the  incident  of  death,  and  shine  as 
the  stars  for  ever  and  ever, — that  is  to  think  of  the 
life  after  death,  not  as  an  answer  to  a  problem,  or  as 
the  satisfaction  of  a  dream,  but  as  the  rational  prog¬ 
ress  of  the  human  soul  from  one  room  to  another  of 
a  Father’s  House.  It  is  to  hope,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
said,  that  we  shall 

One  day  gain,  life  past, 

Clear  vision  o’er  our  Being’s  whole; 

Shall  see  ourselves,  and  learn  at  last 

Our  true  affinities  of  soul. 

If,  then,  the  spiritualization  of  the  present  life  is 
the  way  to  an  interpretation  of  the  future  life;  if  the 
straight  road  to  faith  in  immortality  is  followed  as  one 
walks  by  faith  along  his  daily  path,  it  remains  to  con¬ 
sider  what  there  is  within  one’s  reach  in  this  world 
which  is  transmissible  to  the  future,  immune  from 
change,  and  capable  of  expansion  and  growth.  Here  at 
once  is  met  the  meaning  of  lives  which  may  fancy 
themselves  unfit  for  the  future  because  so  much  tied  to 
the  present.  They  have  no  time  for  meditation  on 
eternity,  and  no  share  in  mystic  dreams.  The  tasks  of 
life,  the  obligations  of  routine,  the  self-effacing  service 
awaiting  them  each  day,  hide  from  them  the  heavenly 
vision,  and  if  they  think  of  the  life  beyond  death  at  all, 
it  is  as  if  it  were  not  for  such  as  they.  Yet  it  is  in 
reality  to  such  lives  that  the  truth  of  continuity  brings 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


141 


most  refreshment  and  reinforcement.  Neither  for 
them,  in  their  modest  experiences,  nor  for  the  most  dis¬ 
tinguished  and  effective  lives,  are  the  things  which  are 
done,  the  achievements  and  accomplishments  of  this 
world,  to  be  permanent  possessions.  All  these  are  of 
the  flesh,  the  temporal,  the  imperfect.  Prophecy  shall 
fail;  tongues  shall  cease;  knowledge  shall  vanish  away. 
What  remains  is  the  discipline,  the  power,  the  pre¬ 
paredness  for  opportunities  and  privileges  for  which 
this  life  is  a  preliminary  training.  That  is  the  rational 
anticipation  which  justifies  patience  in  perplexity,  hope 
in  failures,  courage  to  go  on;  and  which  puts  beneath 
the  incomplete  tasks  and  heavy  burdens  of  life  the 
strength  of  willingness  and  joy. 

And  is  it  possible  to  indicate  more  precisely  the  na¬ 
ture  of  these  transmissible  possessions?  They  must, 
it  would  seem,  be  varied  manifestations  of  the  ideals 
which  clarify  and  control  this  present  life,  and  which 
obviously  have  no  relation  with  physical  vicissitudes  or 
material  change.  The  first  of  these  unchangeable  pos¬ 
sessions  is  the  search  for  truth — the  intellectual  pas¬ 
sion  which  sustains  the  truth-seeker,  the  thirst  for 
knowledge  which  no  increase  of  knowledge  satisfies, 
the  education  which  culminates  in  the  confession  of 
ignorance,  and  beyond  which  lies  the  truth  which 
makes  men  free.  All  this,  if  it  be  not  the  mark  of  a 
futile  and  mocking  universe,  is  the  prophecy  of  con¬ 
tinuity.  Expectancy,  persistency,  patience,  assurance 
of  the  truth  beyond  all  fragmentary  truths  discernible 
here, — these  are  the  springs  of  all  education,  self-dis¬ 
cipline,  and  peace  of  mind.  Death  has  no  dominion 
over  this  domain  of  truth. 

With  that  I  bear  my  senses  fraught 

Till  what  I  am  fast  shoreward  drives. 

They  are  the  Vessel  of  the  Thought; 

The  Vessel  splits,  the  Thought  survives. 

The  same  quality  of  timelessness  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  nature  of  the  moral  life.  The  ethical  paradox 


142 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


which  presents  itself  every  day  to  the  duty-doer  is 
the  contrast  between  an  absolute  command  and  an  im¬ 
perfect  obedience.  “Be  ye  therefore  perfect/’  says  the 
categorical  imperative,  “even  as  your  Father  in  heaven 
is  perfect”;  but  the  perplexed  or  wayward  conscience 
replies,  “The  good  that  I  would,  I  do  not ;  but  the  evil 
that  I  would  not,  that  I  do.”  There  can  be  no  quick 
solution  of  this  moral  paradox.  It  needs  time,  horizon, 
emancipation  from  the  flesh,  a  better  chance  for  growth 
and  power.  How  long  it  may  take  to  efface  moral 
stains,  what  discipline,  probation,  or  anguish  it  may  in¬ 
volve,  one  can  only  imagine  of  the  future  by  recalling 
the  regrets  and  remorse  which  torment  life  here.  The 
Moral  Law  thus  becomes  a  prophecy  of  continuity. 
The  sense  of  obligation  is  a  way  of  revelation.  As  duty 
ceases  to  be  a  task,  and  becomes  a  joy,  as  love,  in 
Paul’s  words,  becomes  the  fulfilment  of  the  law,  life 
enters  into  a  world  of  permanence.  Love  never  faileth. 
The  crown  of  a  good  conscience  is  not  of  gold,  but  of 
life.  “Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give 
thee  a  crown  of  life.”  The  best  reward  of  a  good  life 
is  the  joy  of  going  on.  That,  as  Tennyson  said,  is 
the  glory  of  virtue: 

Nay,  but  she  aimed  not  at  glory;  no  lover  of  glory  she; 

Give  her  the  glory  of  going  on,  and  still  to  be. 

That  is  the  reasonable  expectation  which  Lowell  an¬ 
ticipated  for  the  truth  seeker: 

Thou  art  not  idle,  in  thy  higher  sphere. 

Thy  spirit  bends  itself  to  lowly  tasks; 

And  strength  to  perfect  what  it  dreamed  of  here 
Is  all  the  crown  and  glory  that  it  asks. 

Finally,  the  same  prophetic  note  is  heard  in  the  ap¬ 
peal  of  Beauty.  The  artist  is  persuaded  by  the  ever- 
inviting,  yet  ever-receding,  ideal  of  his  art.  He  lives 
in  a  world  unrealized.  If  he  gain  his  ideal  he  has  lost 
it.  He  produces  a  fragment  of  the  beautiful  through 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


143 


faith  in  a  completely  harmonious  whole.  Nor  is  this 
persuasion  of  the  perfect  lacking  in  the  more  ele¬ 
mentary  experiences  of  appreciation  and  delight.  The 
tranquilizing  landscape,  the  flower  in  the  crannied 
wall,  the  cadences  of  music,  the  soaring  arches  of 
Gothic  art, — these  and  many  other  symbols  of  absolute 
values  lift  life  out  of  flatness  and  prose  into  visions 
and  dreams.  The  wayside  lilies  speak  to  Jesus  of  His 
Father's  care,  even  for  those  of  little  faith.  The 
meanest  flower  that  blows  may  stir  thoughts  too  deep 
for  tears.  The  enjoyment  of  beauty  is  an  open  door 
from  the  world  of  sense  to  the  world  of  spirit. 

The  fruit  of  the  spirit  is  not  only  love,  but  joy.  These 
elements  in  human  life,  which  in  their  very  nature  are 
timeless  and  progressive,  are  what  we  really  mean  by 
personality.  External  features,  the  beloved  counte¬ 
nance,  the  physical  charm, — these  are  necessarily 
changeful,  temporary,  sharing  the  body’s  fate.  But 
personality  is  of  the  mind,  the  soul,  the  heart,  the 
spiritual  response  to  the  True,  or  the  Good,  or  the 
Beautiful.  The  more  unfleshly  personal  relations  grow, 
the  more  prophetic  they  are  of  permanence.  The  cor¬ 
ruptible  must  put  on  incorruption  if  death  is  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  victory.  “When  that  which  is  perfect 
is  come  then  that  which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away.” 

Nor  is  personality  in  its  human  aspect  the  end  of 
this  progressive  revelation  of  the  spirit.  For  these 
abiding  elements  of  consciousness  bring  one  into  direct 
relation  with  that  sense  of  spiritual  unity  in  the  Uni¬ 
verse  as  a  whole,  which  is  but  another  name  for  the 
thought  of  God.  All  that  has  been  thus  far  said  as¬ 
sumes  a  universe  of  spiritual  meaning,  and  a  move¬ 
ment  toward  a  Divine  Event.  In  other  words,  the 
faith  in  spiritual  continuity  is  a  part  of  one’s  faith 
in  God.  Immortality  is  a  corollary  of  theism.  If  the 
universe  is  anything  more  than  a  chaos  of  conflicting 
atoms ;  if  human  experience  is  anything  more  than  the 
tale  of  an  idiot,  signifying  nothing,  it  is  because  the 


144 


RELIGIOUS  FOUNDATIONS 


ideals  of  the  True  and  Good  and  Beautiful,  which  are 
so  imperfectly  realized,  yet  so  persistently  persuasive, 
in  human  experience,  have  their  origin  in  the  law,  and 
their  end  in  the  love,  of  God.  A  Godless  universe 
would  be  the  appropriate  environment  for  a  frustrated 
hope  and  an  extinguished  personality.  A  Divine  Or¬ 
der  is  at  once  the  pledge  that  what  is  fit  to  survive 
will  have  the  chance  to  grow,  and  that  the  destiny  of 
man  will  not  obstruct  the  purpose  of  God.  If  even  in 
this  world  we  may  be  partakers  of  the  Divine  nature, 
then,  with  all  that  must  change  or  perish,  we  become 
partakers  of  the  permanence  of  God.  Less  than  this 
would  be  not  only  disillusion  for  us,  but  failure  for 
God.  “The  secret  of  heaven,”  Emerson  has  said,  “is 
kept  from  age  to  age.  No  imprudent,  no  sociable  angel 
ever  dropped  an  early  syllable  to  answer  the  longings 
of  saints,  the  fears  of  mortals.  .  .  .  But  it  is  certain 
that  it  must  tally  with  what  is  best  in  nature.  It  must 
not  be  inferior  in  tone  to  the  already  known  works  of 
the  Artist  who  sculptures  the  globes  of  the  firmament 
and  writes  the  Moral  Law.” 


Princeton 


heo 


ogical  Seminary  Libraries 


1012  01245  0344 


DATE  DUE 

; 

' 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A 

*> 


